The crisis which is affecting the French left is less the result of a clash between personal ambitions than of its incapacity to define a vision for the France future and to elaborate proposals capable to conciliate the demand for social progress which is its raison d’être with the new world the country must integrate.

A vision is created from a thought. That one is the fruit of a reflection which is improved by meetings with people from diverse origins all along a life. That was François Mitterrand legacy, which gives him today the stature of a statesman. It was this tireless intellectual curiosity which motivated him, and not a Florentine spirit trying to divide his competitors to strengthen his power. It is that quality most of the leaders from the left are missing today. He did not think he knew everything. When he had a conviction, he solicited those who had a different view to strengthen or to invalidate his judgment. It is troubling because, in France, when, at 20, you have succeeded to a competitive examination, you have no more doubts about any issue. François Hollande failure, which he recognized when he decided not to run for a second mandate, is the consequence of the fact that he didn’t get that statute. But he had been elected at his first attempt when François Mitterrand had to run three times.

Intellectual diversity and varied carriers were the characteristics of the teams who joined him at the Elysée in 1981, from Pierre Bérégovoy and Jacques Attali to the writer Paul Guimard, the unionist Jeannette Laot, businessman André Roussellet and law professor Jean-Claude Colliard. We are far from “Promotion Voltaire”. Same contrast in the Socialist Party. Between 1971 and 1981, the economic debate, in which Michel Rocard and Jacques Delors took part when they join the Party, was exceptionally lively. The issue, at that time, is at the center of the political life with the two oil crisis and the end of the “Trente Glorieuses”. François Hollande was at the head of the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2008, one year more than François Mitterrand. In spite of good economic results, Lionel Jospin was eliminated after the first round of the presidential election in 2002. After that, the Socialist Party was not able to adapt its thought to a deeply changing world. Its leaders did not see the liberal turning point which was affecting Europe. They remained silent in front of the costly foreign acquisitions and the relocations French companies practiced, in contrast with their German competitors. They took their distance with the 35 hours reform and an idea emerged: it was the labor costs and the worker rights which were the cause of all the French economy problems.

In acceding to power in 2012 without having tried to understand what had changed in the world, François Hollande was not prepared, contrary to François Mitterrand, to carry out the responsibilities he applied for. He had to face up to a situation he did not master. Here is the real cause of his failure. The left can only win if it is brought together. His project must be part of a European perspective. It must be motivated by the pursuit of social justice objectives. The country prosperity largely lies on its capacity to benefit from technological innovations its enterprises must master and be able to take advantage from them. Unfortunately, these conditions are not gathered today and that is the real cause of the current difficulties. In proclaiming that there were two irreconcilable lefts, the Prime minister chosen by François Hollande has put the left in a crisis from which it is not sure it can escape before long. In splitting the unions through the adoption of a bill reforming labor laws which, in addition to it, generated oppositions inside its own majority, the government has opened a crisis whose intensity can be reassured during the presidential election campaign and which will not be without consequences on the general elections which will come after.

The split is also about Europe. It is not because the European project, in its current form, is criticized, and sometimes for good reasons, that it must be considered as the cause of the current difficulties of the French economy. Loyal to Jacques Delors and François Mitterrand legacies, the French left, through the revival of the International Socialiste, should have created a counterweight to the neo-liberal trends. Instead of that, a dissident group joined the neo-liberals when the others launched an opposition to the European project, on contradiction to the peace and liberty ideals of their predecessors. The project became another source of division. French Socialists are not the only responsible for that. Where are the heirs of Mario Soares, Felipe Gonzales, Bettino Craxi and Willy Brandt who did support the project?

The governments belonging to the left which followed each other since 2012 have been unable to find the solutions which would have permit to gather our partners around historical objectives of social progress which were the basis of the European construction. They have adopted supply-side economic policies which not only failed, but which provoked, as a consequence, an increase of the rejection of Europe in their own camp. But, supply-side or demand-side policies don’t belong to the right or to the left. They must be put into practice according to the situation at a given moment. The reconstitution of profit margins profits only to shareholders when demand is not strong enough. Confronted to this deadlock, the left, today, thinks that the solution is to put ecology at the top of its agenda. But it is a diversion to hide its incapacity to invent a new economic model, suitable for today new open world and confronted with major technological changes.

Ecologist preoccupations belong neither to the right nor to the left. They simply are a question of good sense. But to give a neo-Malthusian version of them as a remedy to all our problems will lead to a political failure. They may even have, as a consequence, the opposite of what was expected as in the case of diesel which was massively encouraged after the “Grenelle de l’environnement”. The absurd project of abandoning nuclear, if it is adopted, will have the same results because as soon as renewable sources of energy are intermittent, the only alternative is fossil fuels. We had this situation this winter. To abandon nuclear as a source of power will heavily weight on purchasing power, along with the destruction of hundreds of thousands jobs. At the end, the digitalization of the economy, with platforms which permit to bypass usual distribution networks can be the better or the worst thing. It is to the left to invent a legal framework which will prevent from the risk of the destruction of half a century of social progress.

All these issues will not be solved during the two months to come but, at the least, it is essential to make French people aware that they will be put at the top of the political agenda of the left if it wants to overpass the crisis which hurts it today.