Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, rejected François Bayrou's proposal for a wide primary to pick a single presidential candidate, in a post on X on Monday evening.
"What François Bayrou does not understand is that the French do not want to extend his 'central bloc', to bring about an alternation 'among ourselves', but an alternative," Faure wrote. He argued instead for "that of a social and ecological bloc."
Bayrou, the former centrist prime minister and head of the MoDem, had put the idea in an interview with Le Figaro on Sunday: a large primary of "all those who reject the extremes", running from "the Socialist Party, in its social-democratic version, to the Gaullists." In his account the maximum risk is a second round between the far right and the far left, and that "catastrophe" arrives "if we do not carry into the second round a candidate capable of bringing together all reformist democrats."
Faure had argued for a different primary — an open one on the left, from the Socialists to the Greens and to former Insoumis who had broken with Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party. Socialist members put him in the minority in early July.
Why it is on the board
It was the second most-read item on BFMTV on Monday.
Sourced from BFMTV, which quotes Bayrou's interview with Le Figaro.