Olivia Polski sent a long message to say how good she feels about the agreement signed with the Insoumis in Paris; Martine Rosset did the same. The two socialist candidates for the legislative elections in the capital skipped the small meeting organized Tuesday morning in the André-Citroën park, very close to the prefecture of Île-de-France, where all the candidates of the Nupes were then to deposit their candidacy. There will therefore be, in the family photo bathed in sunlight, only the Insoumis, including Danielle Simonnet and Sophia Chikirou, and a few environmentalists, in the forefront of which the boss, Julien Bayou, and Sandrine Rousseau. But no socialist or communist. The family is not complete.
In Paris, the PS is pissed off. The two candidates (who explained their absence by a busy schedule) inherited unwinnable constituencies, or almost. Privilege of the dominant party, the Insoumis have served themselves well. They even got their hands on the constituency of the only outgoing leftist deputy, that of Lamia El Aaraje, provoking the anger of the latter, and of the whole party. But, while these setbacks could have triggered firm opposition from the Parisian federation of the Socialist Party, the latter procrastinated. In a press release, David Assouline, the boss of the Parisian socialists, spares the goat and the cabbage. “In Paris, the PS is humiliated by the agreement reached,” writes the senator. But he immediately specifies that, of course, he is withdrawing socialist candidates everywhere in order to free up the place for those sent by Nupes…
David Assouline is, as ex-minister Jean Glavany acknowledges for himself, “on a ridge line”. The socialist tenors are numerous to be opposed to the agreement, but they cannot say it. The voters on the left are, in majority, favorable to the union. It is therefore a question of approving the electoral contract, while turning a blind eye to its conditions. A position that gives rise to incomprehensible situations.
Thus, on May 8, we witness an astonishing scene. On a market in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, David Assouline walks alongside Lamia El Aaraje, the socialist candidate whom he continues to support, accompanied by Lionel Jospin. The small team meets Danielle Simonnet, the official candidate of LFI in this constituency. Assouline is like schizophrenic, supporting one at the local level and her rival at the national level… Other tenors are also squirming. This is the case of Anne Hidalgo. Immediately after the signing of the agreement, on May 2, the mayor of Paris published a press release in which she affirmed “not to oppose” the agreement, while refuting its terms. The contract, she regrets, “does not provide the necessary guarantees on subjects as essential as NATO, European defense, secularism and universal values”.
Hello ParisiansNicolas Mayer-Rossignol, PS mayor of Rouen
Martine Aubry, a kind of socialist reference in these turbulent times, is on the same line… of crest. The mayor of Lille uses almost the same very balanced words of Anne Hidalgo, saying that she “does not wish to prevent an electoral agreement which aims to combat ecological and social regression”, while the contract “does not however correspond in all point of view to [my] convictions”… She then calls on socialist activists to validate it, which will be done.
In Seine-Maritime, we are just as upset against Nupes. In this very socialist land, declining stronghold of Laurent Fabius, the Insoumis have granted nothing to the candidates of the PS. The local federation reacted strongly. She maintains three candidates, believing that they are the most likely to win. But, since there is always a “but”, the local federation supports in the other seven constituencies the candidate nominated by the Nupes, regardless of whether these candidates are, as the PS mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol says, “Parisian cuckoo clocks”…
In Corrèze, famous Dutch land, the local federation has done the same. She “strongly disapproves” of the deal, says her boss, Paul Roche, but oddly does nothing to prevent it. The Corrèze socialists close their eyes: they do not present dissident candidates, but will not campaign for those invested by the agreement…
Carole Delga, she seems to darken. The president of Occitania is headwind against Nupes. She said it and said it again, she even brought together at the end of last week, with Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and Stéphane Le Foll, some 500 PS executives to lead the revolt. But, as if she too was procrastinating, she wrote a letter to Olivier Faure a few days ago asking him for a favor: that Katy Guyot, PS candidate in the 2nd district of Gard, could remain a candidate in place of the Insoumise designated by Nupes. “We believe that she is best able to beat the RN candidate, because she is well established and the last elections were favorable to the PS”, explains one in the entourage of the president of Occitania. Who, from next Friday, could no longer procrastinate at all. Depending on the number of dissident candidates who will file their candidacy for the legislative elections, it will give a more or less organized follow-up to the rebellious movement which opposes the Nupes…
