(Paris) Do the bad polls around the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo sound the death knell for the Socialist Party? Some, even within the party of François Mitterrand, think so, worried about the financing and the legislative elections to come. Others assure that a rise in the mayor of Paris remains possible.
Posted at 2:41 p.m.
Falling to 1.5% of voting intentions on Wednesday according to an Elabe poll, Anne Hidalgo is at 3% in the Opinionway-Kéa Partners barometer, and less than 3% in the IFOP poll.
behind the communists
Since December, it has not reached 5% of voting intentions, behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Yannick Jadot, Christiane Taubira and even now the communist Fabien Roussel.
“It’s difficult”, recognizes the candidate, who does not intend to let go, convinced of the unreliability of the polls, but also that her themes on purchasing power, social justice, will end up infusing.
At the PS, which was in 2012 at the head of all the institutions (presidency, Assembly, Senate) and finds itself ten years later with only 22,000 members, the atmosphere is gloomy.
“At this level, you have to be crazy or delighted with the nursery not to doubt,” analyzes a manager. “The PS brand is on the ground, it’s a reality, but the socialist idea is still relevant”, he wants to hope, denouncing a “frenzied Hidalgo bashing”.
Another sees it rather as errors by the candidate herself, regretting that she “made 180 degree turns which raise questions” and “scalded people, even in her team”. “It was right to ask the question of unity, by proposing a primary, but it did it too late”, notes another.
Stéphane Le Foll, the mayor of Le Mans, unsuccessful candidate for the PS investiture, for his part judged Wednesday on France 2 that “the survival of the PS was already largely started”.
“The left is too dated, divided, radicalized, it will be marginalized, even in the legislative elections” in June, abounds with AFP the former Prime Secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadelis. “The majority of abstainers are on the left”, he insists, regretting that the PS is “no longer the order factor of the left”.
On the side of the competitors, the observation is harsh: “The weakness of the left is firstly due to the weakness of the PS”, wants to believe an official of the far left party La France insoumise. “We do not see how they could go up”, judges a member of the Europe Ecology party the Greens.
” Danger of death ” ?
“The PS is no more in danger of death than the other left-wing parties,” replied AFP Philippe Doucet, member of the party’s national office. “The whole left is pulling down” and “can’t manage to anchor its themes in the campaign”, he says.
Concern also hangs over the financing of the campaign. “Of course, everyone wants to be at least 5%, to get reimbursed. Nobody wants to lose 5 to 6 million,” notes another socialist official. But he stresses that there is “no question of disconnecting Hidalgo. If disconnection there is, the party explodes”.
For Pierre Jouvet, spokesperson for the party, the polls “are not serious. The PS is not at 1.5% of voting intentions. It doesn’t exist when you are a party that runs 25 departments, 5 regions and some of the biggest cities”.
Some executives admit it, “the real difficulty is above all that we have not yet purged the liabilities of hatred against us” after the Hollande five-year term.
“In 2017, I said, +we have 15 years to rebuild. We are still in it, ”abounds Sébastien Vincini, mayor of Cintegabelle and spokesperson for the candidate.
But “the heart of the PS is still there”, insists Jean-François Débat, mayor of Bourg-en-Bresse, who judges that the popular primary, which crushed Anne Hidalgo and gave victory to its competitor Christiane Taubira, paradoxically “ united the militants to the PS”.
“There is more solidity in the support for Anne Hidalgo than what is told”, adds Sébastien Vincini, according to whom there “was no massive exodus of elected officials”, towards Taubira or Emmanuel Macron.
But, according to the polls, many left-wing voters are currently considering the useful vote for the outgoing president, from the first round.