diff --git a/lib/SimpleSAML/Memcache.php b/lib/SimpleSAML/Memcache.php
index b54eef3cf5b5874acb8a17fd7441ed708cee1d94..15c24b9a3c503f3f6a1f3c259a01650f6ba03ad5 100644
--- a/lib/SimpleSAML/Memcache.php
+++ b/lib/SimpleSAML/Memcache.php
@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ class Memcache
      */
     private static function loadMemcacheServerGroup(array $group)
     {
-        $memcache = new \Memcached();
+        $memcache = new \Memcached('persistent');
 
         // iterate over all the servers in the group and add them to the Memcache object
         foreach ($group as $index => $server) {