Even beaten, Ségolène Royal does not intend to sign a blank check to Raphaël Glucksmann. Quite the contrary. The day after her scathing defeat in the first round of the Social Democratic primary, with barely 7.6% of the vote, behind Olivier Faure's 14.4%, the former Minister of the Environment warned the victorious candidate. If on Sunday she congratulated, with lip service, the one she still describes as an “intern”, wishing him “all the strength it takes to bring together the left which will be difficult”, and assuring him of her support, the tone is quite different this Monday.
Even if it means renewing her attacks on the debates, when the PS finalist in the 2007 presidential election suspected the MEP of eyeing the central bloc and the right under the cover of hostility to La France Insoumise (LFI). “If there is unity on the left, I will help as promised. If it drifts towards the macronism which put France into financial bankruptcy, and which governed by fear and brutality, it will be without me”, warns Ségolène Royal, she who has never ceased to subordinate her commitment in Raphaël Glucksmann's campaign to this union of the left which she called for.
Also read After the consecration of the primary on the left, Raphaël Glucksmann challenges himself to bring together
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An exit far from surprising, to the extent that the ex-president of Poitou-Charentes had refused throughout the campaign to say whether she would support the MEP until the end - her support depending each time on the capacity of her then competitor to bring his camp together. Even more, she today expresses doubts about the very conditions of the election, starting with the cost of participation, from 10 to 15 euros, and the clear swelling of the electorate, which exceeded internal forecasts with more than 140,000 registered.
A pricing problem?
So many elements likely, according to her, to have weighed on the result of the election, won hands down by Raphaël Glucksmann. Calling her supporters to witness, she relays their questions: “Are you asking me if the 80,000 new registrants are left-wing since it’s a left-wing primary? I don't know any more than you do. Are you also telling me that a lot of people didn't vote because of the price? That’s true.” In this regard, she claims to have demanded, in vain, a rate of 4 euros, closer to the symbolic euro requested in each round of the 2011 socialist primary, in which she had already competed, than to the range of 10 to 15 euros retained this year.
A requirement all the more justified in her eyes as these tariffs would have cost her “a lot of votes”, particularly among young people and in popular categories, who would have given up voting for her due to lack of means. “We would have liked to vote for you as a family because at least we understand that you want us well, but we can't, it's too expensive,” she reports, citing those who challenged her, before saying “sorry”.
