PS Congress: Boris Vallaud will vote in a personal capacity for Olivier Faure

Boris Vallaud, who came third in the first round of the Socialist Party congress, will vote in a personal capacity for Olivier Faure, the outgoing First Secretary, in the second round on Thursday, but reaffirmed that he will not give voting instructions to his troops, in an interview with Le Monde on Sunday.

"I will vote for Olivier Faure," declared the leader of the Socialist group in the Assembly, but "my choice is not an instruction," he insisted, saying he was "too attached to the freedom of activists."

The Landes MP, who spoke with Olivier Faure , who came first (42.21%), and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, who came second (40.38%), justifies his choice by believing that "the one who came first has the legitimacy and above all the responsibility to bring people together".

He clarified that he "also shares the outgoing First Secretary's line of unity of the left." But his vote for Olivier Faure will be "neither a blank check nor a magic slate," insists the man who caused a surprise by obtaining 17.41% of the vote behind his two rivals.

"If elected, Mr. Faure will have to respond to the activists' desire for change, their willingness to work on ideas, their desire to be better taken into consideration in the party's strategic choices, and their wish for broad and united governance, respecting and listening to all sensitivities," warns Boris Vallaud.

The Landes MP says he has received "firm commitments from Olivier" Faure regarding his demands and promises to be "vigilant in ensuring their effective implementation." Boris Vallaud entered the congress battle as the candidate for "reconciliation" of the party, fractured since the previous fratricidal congress in Marseille in 2023, and with the goal of getting the Socialist Party back to work.

In particular, he put forward the idea of ​​"decommodifying" society, initiated a "Léon Blum Academy," a place for training and generating ideas, and launched an internal media outlet, "Le Nouveau populaire." Congratulating himself on having "shaken up" the logic of "bloc against bloc," Boris Vallaud believes he has "made the Socialist Party a parliamentarian, because no one has an absolute majority in the National Council (the party's parliament) and the National Bureau (the executive)."

For him, whoever is elected must therefore "show absolute modesty," and even if Olivier Faure wins, "the PS will not be built without Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol" and "Carole Delga," the president of Occitanie.