Socialist Party sinks into crisis

The management of the PS again announced, on Sunday, the re-election of Olivier Faure as first secretary, but his opponent, the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, denounces fraud.

by Sandrine Cassini

The Socialist Party (PS) still cannot agree on the name of its new first secretary. Sunday, January 22, in the middle of the afternoon, the PS confirmed the victory of Olivier Faure, its first outgoing secretary, with 51.09 % of the votes, against 48.91 % for its opponent, the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. Unlike Friday, January 20, this result is presented as the result of the Party Harvesting Commission, supposed to play the peace judges after the vote of activists of January 19.

But far from closing the controversy, the Sunday press release of the PS has given rise to a new psychodrama. It must be said that Olivier Faure had already heated the spirits by reiterating his victory in the game of Sunday (JDD), from Saturday January 21, while the commission was still in full work. Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol denounced a new attempt to “pass”. “I will never accept that democracy is not respected,” said the mayor of Rouen, pointing to the irregularities and the “manifest frauds” who had enamelled the voting of the activists.

Since Saturday, representatives of the three camps-those of the two finalists, and that of the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin (Rhône), Hélène Geoffroy, battered in the first round-were gathered at the PS headquarters in Ivry-sur -Sine to review all the votes department by department. “We had just examined Pas-de-Calais, when the representatives [of Olivier Faure] asked for a fifteen-minute interruption, reports the senator from Paris David Assouline, support of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. They returned by offering A different methodology and three scenarios, placing Olivier Faure winning with a result between 50.5 % and 51 %. “According to him, thirty-eight departments remained to be examined, while sixteen others had not been validated by the three parts.

The number two of the PS, Corinne Narassiguin, in charge of the commission, remained evasive on the progress of the facts, simply admitting that “certain federations [had] been studied in more detail than others”. She also indicated that the current first secretary had called Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol and Hélène Geoffroy so that they “see each other” to prepare the congress which must be held next weekend in Marseille, and “find the way to the rally “.

The Marseille Congress could be bloody

A request to which Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol did not want to access. “I told him that I was not in the party to endorse practices from another time,” he said. The pretender at the head of the PS requests that the Commission is continuing its work, without which it will go to court, he threatens. As for Hélène Geoffroy, behind which was placed the old socialist guard, Olivier Faure would simply have tried to convince her to dissociate himself from this cumbersome rival, we explain in the camp of the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin.

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/Media reports cited above.