Le Creusot (France) (AFP)
Forty years after the victory of François Mitterrand, on May 10, 1981, Mitterrandie sought on Sunday in Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) reasons to hope for a return of the left to power, when only one in four voters is considering to vote for her in 2022.
The former president François Hollande, the ex-Prime Ministers Lionel Jospin and Bernard Cazeneuve, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, the former ministers Pierre Joxe or Jean Glavany, Gilbert Mitterrand (son of the former president): the "companions" of route de Mitterrand, as Mr. Jospin described them, had made an appointment to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the election, but also an "emblematic figure who left us a huge legacy", in the words of David Marti , mayor PS of Le Creusot.
Several round tables were organized, from which emerged a strong feeling of nostalgia.
Jean Glavany told how he had become Mitterrand's chief of staff, with the moments of "exaltation" of the first cohabitation, "a game of go or chess for which Mitterrand was a goldsmith".
Pierre Joxe explained that Mitterrand's “methodical work” to bring the left to power was “an interesting lesson for the future”.
Lionel Jospin spoke of "the fruitful journey of a great leader and a head of state", who "left the prime ministers to govern and respected the ministers".
- "Misunderstanding" -
Mr. Jospin explained that he would not go at the invitation of President Emmanuel Macron, who wishes to bring together the former Elysee under François Mitterrand soon, because "in terms of the way in which the power today, any reconciliation with what Mitterrand did can only result from a misunderstanding ".
The left in France is in bad shape, one year before the presidential election at which it risks leaving divided.
Public opinion, as elsewhere in Europe, is also more and more predominantly on the right, according to a survey published Tuesday by the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol).
The former First Secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadélis (2014-2017), a distant successor to François Mitterrand, draws a gloomy report in the Journal du Dimanche.
"The left celebrates May 10 and the victory of François Mitterrand by being divided and without ideas," he writes: "Its total in voting intentions is the lowest for fifty years. Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not conceive of unity behind its radicalism. Environmentalists are obsessed with the idea of getting ahead of the Socialists, who softly support Anne Hidalgo. The left is preparing to make up the presidential election and refuses to build an agreement in the legislative elections, which announces several candidacies in each constituency, inevitably leading to its marginalization ".
However, the former president Hollande sees in the memory of May 10, 1981 the opportunity to profit from past "experiences".
"The left was already divided in 1981 but there was this great Socialist Party," he recalled.
"You always need a force and an incarnation, a force that you have to imagine, organize, think. There is one year left. In one year, you have to do what François Mitterrand took ten years to do", between the congress of the overhaul of the PS in Epinay in 1971 and the victory in 1981. "It is the acceleration of history", he quipped.
However, "the cycle opened in 1981 is it closed again? Has socialism finished with its reforming mission? I do not believe it", hammered Mr. Holland.
"Socialism, if it is rethought, renewed, with the ecological urgency, socialism is the most appropriate response to ensure social and national cohesion. It is up to the new generations to work on it, a political construction is being done always with old and new, in the reinvention ".
© 2021 AFP