PES President Sergei Stanishev said:
“Our candidate for this election was PS candidate Benoît Hamon, a socialist with a transformative agenda and a true fighter against xenophobic ideology. The extremely polarised environment stopped him on the way to the second round. The French Socialist Party can count on the full cooperation of the PES in the upcoming legislative election in June. France and Europe need a strong social democratic voice in order to strengthen equality and solidarity in a fairer world.
For the presidential election on 7 May the PES extends its support for Emmanuel Macron without question. He advocates for open, inclusive societies and he is a strong supporter of the European Union. The alternative is Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the extreme right, an openly authoritarian and xenophobic movement which in favour of group discrimination and the destruction of the EU. There can be no doubt that Macron is the better option”.
“Let me quote Benoît Hamon’s speech on Sunday night: ‘I want to draw a clear distinction between a political rival and an enemy of the republic’. We want to draw that line very clearly, too”, Stanishev added.
