Anne Hidalgo, the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS) in the presidential election, has planned to organize a dinner, Wednesday, April 6, in the company of eminent representatives of her training. A meal that was not on any official agenda. Four days before the first round of the ballot, during these feasts which were intended to be secret, it was not so much a question of negotiating the home stretch of a dormant campaign as well as of launching, right now, the great maneuvers for the recomposition of the PS and the left.
According to our information, at 8 p.m., six guests are to meet in the dining room of the Senate quaestorship, boulevard Saint-Michel, in Paris: the inviting powers first, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, and Patrick Kanner , the president of the socialist group in the Senate. In their company: the former President of the Republic François Hollande, the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, the mayor of Nantes and campaign director for Anne Hidalgo, Johanna Rolland. The former Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, was not available.
yalta night
There is another notable absentee, but who did not receive the slightest invitation card: Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the PS. Because in reality, for all these guests, the PS, in its current form, has lived. His first secretary surely too. Moreover, Anne Hidalgo and Carole Delga have, on several occasions in recent weeks, regretted that the PS has not, for five years, worked enough to win back a substantial electorate.
The agenda of this nocturnal Yalta is twofold. Organize the post-presidential election by thinking about a new social-democratic movement that would go far beyond the PS. A gathering which could include, in a second time, environmentalists, communists and radical leftists.
The second topic of discussion should relate to a common position to be adopted from Sunday April 10, the evening of the first round. The timing and its urgency are important because Olivier Faure has planned to speak in order to take strong action in view of the legislative elections, according to his entourage.
Driving a new approach
For Anne Hidalgo, who could record the worst score of a socialist candidate in the presidential election, this dinner, the first stone of a grand coalition, is crucial. It is about taking the initiative to hope to participate in this recomposition. For François Hollande, who is still reluctant to stand in the legislative elections, after preparing at the beginning of the year to be a possible last resort if the mayor of Paris decides to withdraw from the presidential race, it is to position itself to play an essential role in the future. But this future, the ex-president envisages it without the current management of the PS and its first secretary.
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