Francois Hollande returns to the game and looks ahead to the presidential election

Returning to the political scene thanks to the solution, former President François Hollande wants to strengthen the “reformist left” and restart the conflict with the rebel leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with the unacknowledged aim of presenting himself as a possible refuge in the next presidential election.

Having become Correspondent again, under the colors of the new Popular Front, seven years after leaving the keys of the Elysée to Emmanuel Macron, the former head of state (2012-2017), aged 70, “puts aside his little pebbles”, analyzes the Socialist who knows him well and has “no doubt” about his ambitions.

“He always has the same modus operandi: a new book,” the same person laughs.

François Hollande has just published The Challenge of Governance (Perrin Editions), in which he links the ambiguous relationship between the left and power and the duel between two leftists, one extremist and the other more reformist.

According to him, “every time the reformist left was stronger, it allowed the left to win and rule.” But when the radical left was more important, it “prevented the left from coming to power.”

A supposed criticism against La France insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose excesses he, like part of the Socialist Party, never ceases to denounce.

He expressed his deep hostility to the first leftist alliance, Nobis, reached with the LFI in May 2022, yet supported the new Popular Front, which for him was more balanced.

To appear “like an asylum”, says one MP, “Hollande is ready for all the detours”. “To fit into the group, in July he said all the time that he agreed with Olivier Faure”, he joked, while relations between the two men have been tense since the first secretary of the Socialist Party carried out an “inventory” of the party's former president.

“François Hollande's strategy is to regain his weight with the left,” he continues, while part of the left still criticizes him for his five-year term, in particular the “labor law”, the “revocation of citizenship” and the “betrayal” of his presidential commitments in 2012.

– “stumble” –

“In the Assembly, he's the synthesis guy,” says one Socialist Party official. “It's what we call stumbling. He's in this equilibrium, and he tells himself he can pull chestnuts out of the fire.”

“Getting back into the game with the new Popular Front, which is cleaning up part of its bad image, is smart,” says a socialist deputy.

Another Socialist deputy confirmed that he “puts himself in his place”, and is also certain that if early presidential elections are held, “he will be a candidate, just like Mélenchon”.

The former president gave a glimpse of his ambitions on Sunday at the RTL-Le Figaro-Public Council-M6 grand jury, considering that “twice (three in fact, editor's note) Jean-Luc Mélenchon was a candidate for the presidency of the Republic twice failing to reach the second round”.

He stressed that it would be necessary for him to choose in the next presidential election “someone who is better positioned to win”, that is, “a socialist or close to the Socialist Party”, rejecting a single left-wing candidacy.

Is he saying “don’t run for president again” to him? “I didn’t say that,” the former president replied, claiming he was “in a state of mind to serve my country by choosing the right person.”

Meanwhile, he also intends to influence the party line he has long led, which criticizes its tendency toward an insurgent France.

Like Olivier Faure's opponents, he calls for a conference at the beginning of the year, but he wants it to be “open with Bernard Cazeneuve, Raphaël Glucksmann…”, all hostile to M. Mélenchon.

For rebel MP Paul Vanier, “it is clear that François Hollande intends to exercise a very strong influence on the group and the party.” He denounced: “It has started again as before, and the desire to dismantle the coalition is still there.”

But within the Socialist Party leadership, it was stressed that François Hollande “was elected within a broad coalition”, and that “he must not forget this”. Recalling that the new activists “are completely in favour of the Union, not in favour of the return of Dutchness”.

Kaz/Jmt/Rahel