Young Socialists: landslide victory for 27-year-old Emma Rafovich, re-elected president

She didn’t leave her opponent a chance. Emma Rafovich, close to the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, was re-elected this Sunday at the head of the Young Socialists at the congress of the movement in Lille. She received 85.8% of the vote against Arthur Moine.

This 27-year-old elected representative from Paris is on the path of Olivier Faure, a supporter of the May 2022 Nupes agreement with LFI, EELV and PCF. She supported the latter’s proposal to become the first federal secretary of the Paris Federation, but was defeated by Lamia El Aaraje.

On Friday, his national action plan (PAN, a kind of indicative text) was well ahead of the federations’ vote with 76.4% of the vote, ahead of his two rivals, Arthur Moinet (14.6%) and Cedric Hardouin. (9%).

The deputy mayor of the 11th arrondissement of Paris, where she is responsible for culture, crafts and heritage, is a political fan: she joined the Young Socialist Movement at the age of 16. She then took over the reins in 2017 before being re-elected in May 2022.

She worked to reorganize the movement, once entangled in harassment and sexual harassment cases, and to recruit new members. This mission has been a success: the Young Socialists movement is booming, with membership rising from 150 the day after François Hollande’s five-year term to 4,000 at the start of 2023, Le Figaro emphasizes, helped by the Nupes effect.

She wants to “debourgeoisize our organization” and wants women to have “power,” she said in her Sunday speech. Emma Rafovich regrets that some may still describe her as “an object surrounded by men who make decisions.”

Initially “shy”.

On Saturday, the first day of the Congress of Young Socialists, Olivier Faure greeted a young woman who was “shy” at the start but made her way. And whose proposal “gained such a majority that I myself still dream of.” Olivier Faure was narrowly re-elected as head of the PS last January after a stormy congress that saw the Socialists split between supporters and opponents of Nupe.

“The political line of ecological socialism has been chosen,” the Young Socialists movement explained in a press release after voting on its orientation text.

Emma Rafovich was warmly congratulated on social media by many party figures, including Patrick Kanner, former minister and senator, or Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes.