Benoît Payan, announces that he will support the winner of the popular Primary on the left, in an interview this Thursday on the site of the newspaper Liberation. The PS mayor of Marseille calls on the presidential candidates, including the socialist Anne Hidalgo, to unite. While he had not yet confirmed or denied that he supported the PS candidate Anne Hidalgo, Benoît Payan therefore specifies that he will give his “sponsorship to the woman or the man” who will be “majority out” of the primary.
Only Christiane Taubira, the former Socialist Keeper of the Seals, who should formalize his candidacy on Saturday, announced his participation in this Primary, to which Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the Insoumis, or Yannick Jadot, the environmental candidate, have always refused to register.
Christiane Taubira and Benoît Payan recently met in Marseille, last November, during a tribute to Gaston Crémieux, shot 150 years ago at the Pharo.
“We are doomed to be the dumbest left in the world for how long?” – Benoît Payan
Anne Hidalgo finally gave up the idea of participating in this primary, which made the mayor of Marseille react. “You can’t say, I go to primary school on Mondays and, on Thursdays, I don’t go there because there aren’t the friends I want. You have to be consistent“, says Benoît Payan. “All these convolutions will not justify this irresponsibility. We are doomed to be the dumbest left in the world for how long?“, he asks.
“I’m not asking Hidalgo, Jadot or Mélenchon to give up who they are, I’m telling them they have a responsibility to unite. Otherwise they won’t win“- Benedict Payan
The man who leads Marseille, after the victory of the Marseille Spring, a coalition of left-wing forces ranging from ecologists to La France insoumise via the Communist Party and the PS, still hopes to push the candidates of his camp to unite: “_I don’t ask Hidalgo, Jadot or Mélenchon to give up what they are, I tell them that_they have a responsibility to unite. Otherwise they won’t win“.”If we believe that we are useful for something, if we believe that governing this country with the ecologists, the left and the progressives is not the same thing as the liberals, the reactionaries and the conservatives, then we give ourselves the means“, insists Benoît Payan.