Christiane Taubira formalized her candidacy for the presidential election on Saturday January 15. It is part of the popular primary, which is to be held on January 27th. Although it is not certain that she will succeed, the former Keeper of the Seals is trying not to appear as one more candidate on the left. Invited from France Inter, Christiane Taubira returned on Tuesday to the origin of her candidacy, with this observation: the left remains divided. “Since everyone is convinced that the union of the left is necessary. I tried. I took some initiatives. I called people, it came to nothing, deplores Christiane Taubira. I saw a spectacle of people who tensed up, convinced that union is essential but that union is only conceived behind you.
She tried to create the union, but faced with the ill will of the other left-wing candidates, she had no choice but to take the initiative. The argument is quite transparent, but is it convincing? I have some doubts. On the form already. Christiane Taubira tells us: “I tried to unite the left. I took some initiatives. I called people”. So of course, no one is required to do the impossible… But take some initiatives? Call people? We can be surprised, I believe, at the contrast there is between the claimed intention, the absolute need to unite the left, and the actions accomplished, at least as she describes them herself. .
Basically, it’s even worse. Christiane Taubira accuses her competitors of being tense on their meadows, each and everyone convinced that the union can only be done behind them or behind her. So, don’t get me wrong: the argument is not lacking in weight… except that it can be reversed like a glove, and turned against her: she too, in fact, by her additional candidacy, contributes to the crumbling from the left!
The main argument of the former Keeper of the Seals is unsurprisingly to agree to submit to the judgment of the popular Primary. “I am the one who accepts the risks of a citizen investiture. I am in the dynamic of the gathering. I assume the democratic risks and I do it openly. You will ask questions to each other and in particular to those who continue to proclaim the need for the union of the left but who do not accept the risk.
She accepts the risk of a citizen investiture… So, yes, it’s true. If, indeed, she is nominated as a candidate by the popular Primary, this will give her legitimacy to compete in the presidential election. I did say “a” legitimacy… and not “the” legitimacy. Because, and that’s the whole problem: if there are so many candidates, it’s good that each of them thinks they can claim legitimacy! Yannick Jadot: because he himself won a broad primary, after demanding and disputed debates. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, because he can take advantage of the 7 million votes gathered during the last presidential election, and the program he has been defending ever since. Anne Hidalgo, because she was appointed by the Socialist Party, which can claim to have given two left-wing presidents to the Fifth Republic. What’s more: each of these three actors have, at some point, and in vain, also called to enter into a dynamic of gathering.
As for the popular Primary, it is an OPNI: an unidentified, self-organized political object, of which we do not see how the legitimacy it confers would be superior to that of the other candidates! The left is therefore confronted with a structural dispersion. Since the debacle of the PS in 2017 and the election of Emmanuel Macron, followed by a period of 5 years during which France Insoumise failed, and even did not seek to become a major rallying party, it has orphan of a large common house. This is how we arrive at this astonishing rhetorical paradox: six candidates who all claim, and no doubt in good faith, to embody the union. And in doing so, each contributes to deepen the division…