On April 11, the day after the first round of the presidential election, the awakening is likely to be quite difficult for some “elephants”. At the end of a campaign that looks like a way of the cross, Anne Hidalgo oscillates between 2 and 3% of voting intentions in the polls. Either behind the communist Fabien Roussel, and neck and neck with Jean Lassalle… Almost enough to regret the debacle of Benoît Hamon and his 6% of the vote, 5 years ago.
The worst score of a socialist candidate, 5%, was Gaston Defferre in 1969. If Anne Hidalgo does not reach this threshold of 5%, it is first of all the financial survival of the PS which would be at stake. party is already on the verge of bankruptcy and it could not be reimbursed for its campaign expenses by the State. And then beyond, it is the political survival of the PS which would be in question. Who to try to rebuild it? What future for social democracy? François Hollande has already shown last week in a meeting that he is keen on tackling this challenge which seems insurmountable…
The PS still has many elected officials, and that’s the whole paradox. If the socialists have disappeared at the national level, they are no longer a force of government, they remain a management force at the local level, very present in the territories. The PS has thus retained its five major regions, most of its major cities, and it has even conquered a few, such as Nancy and even Marseille. It has become a union of local elected officials, with a few strongholds here and there, and vast geographical areas from which it has largely disappeared. Like the moribund SFIO of the 1960s, before François Mitterrand rebuilt the PS at the Epinay congress.
Among these strongholds, there is the city of Paris, and it will not be an easy task for Anne Hidalgo to preserve it if she returns to City Hall, weighted by 2 or 3% in the presidential election. The opposition will immediately attack again: Rachida Dati and the right will pound it, especially with the deadline for the Paris 2024 Olympics in sight. And it should shake within its own majority. His environmental allies, who are already restless, risk challenging his authority a little more. We realize that the municipal elections of two years ago acted as a sham. The Walkers scuttled themselves with their divisions and the explosion in flight of Benjamin Griveaux. In the midst of Covid, the ballot was marked by record abstention. And Anne Hidalgo ended up believing that her re-election opened the doors of the Elysée to her. An optical illusion that could end up making him lose the keys to the Town Hall.