And the left once again found itself on the front of the stage. Encalminated, inaudible in the face of competition and still devoid of an indisputable leader five years after the end of François Hollande’s five-year term, she is still far from being able to imagine reaching the second round of the presidential election, and even less opening up the doors of the Elysée next April. But the proposals of Arnaud Montebourg and especially Anne Hidalgo to put their respective candidacies into play, formulated on Wednesday December 8 and rejected in the wake by almost all their competitors, have at least allowed to shine the spotlight on the destinies and projects of these five main left candidates who are running for the Elysee.
After weeks dominated by the congress of the right and the political beginnings of Eric Zemmour, the meetings of Yannick Jadot, Saturday in Laon (Aisne) and Anne Hidalgo, Sunday in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), will they allow amplify the media attention paid to the left, or even transform it into a political dynamic? Story of a week where the lines have finally moved, after weeks of apathy.
Monday December 6. Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his supporters congratulate themselves on the successful show of force the day before: 4,500 people gathered in La Défense (Hauts-de-Seine) around the Parliament of the Union populaire, a new political structure of rebellious France centered on personalities from civil society. A stroke of brilliance in December to make the hole in January, anticipate the party’s strategists: “In a month, the effective vote will be displayed on the left”, explains to franceinfo Eric Coquerel, LFI deputy of Seine-Saint-Denis. “With a qualifying threshold in the second round of around 17%, when you are at 12%, 13% in the polls, it becomes clearer.”
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Yannick Jadot and Anne Hidalgo, them, dream of these double-digit scores. But at the beginning of the week, the ecologist and the socialist are rather struggling around 5% in opinion polls, a fateful bar for the reimbursement of campaign costs.
Tuesday night, an Elabe poll for The Express and BFMTV has the effect of a bomb: the mayor of Paris is credited with only 3% of voting intentions. The study annoys as much as it worries the Socialists. “Would we prefer to be higher? The answer is yes, of course”, recognizes a framework of the PS. Questions arise again that have never let go of Anne Hidalgo’s campaign: will the mayor of Paris go to the end, as she has repeatedly assured? Can she rally to another better placed candidate? “In his team, they are all devastated”, tells an elected socialist.
“Anne Hidalgo has a lot to lose and her team will think in terms of lower costs to come out of the campaign on top.”
An elected socialistto franceinfo
Everything is racing on Wednesday morning. Expected in La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime), Anne Hidalgo gets off her TGV in Poitiers (Vienne) at 11 am, changes platform and leaves for Paris by train in the process. Officially because of the triggering of the white plan in the capital, umpteenth disruption linked to Covid-19. In the afternoon, the candidate reveals to her campaign team the real reason for the change of program: she goes at 8 p.m. on the set of the TF1 newspaper to propose a primary from the left. Usually responsible for defending the candidate in the media, the spokespersons kick in while waiting for the evening’s statement, leaving the specter of an outright withdrawal.
A few hours earlier, Arnaud Montebourg had already taken a step towards this proposal for a primary. In Release, Tuesday evening, the former Minister of Productive Recovery evokes the risk of a “disappearance of the left” due to divisions and spear “a call for the unification of forces around a common project and candidate”. Behind the scenes, his campaign is crumbling, a month after the outcry over his proposal to block private money transfers to countries that refuse to repatriate their nationals targeted by an expulsion measure from French territory. “Around him, I see everyone leaving, it’s a matter of days before a withdrawal”, bet a traveling companion.
In a video published Wednesday at 6 p.m., Arnaud Montebourg addresses “to the people of the left”, and said to himself “ready to offer [sa] application for a joint project and candidate “ if a discussion opens between all the candidates. Two hours later on TF1, the mayor of Paris believes that “this fractured left must come together and come together”. “My responsibility is to organize a primary of the left: that come the candidates who want to govern together.” According to her, “we are still on schedule to create an electric shock”, she assures the World, after his TV interview.
“If I did not do an act like this, there is the risk that nothing exists left on the left.”
The response from the other camps was not long in coming. The most immediate is that of Julien Bayou, national secretary of Europe Ecology-The Greens, who judges on Twitter that “the socialist candidate recognizes the inability of the PS to be a driving force. Of which act.” “We are not hypocrites, Yannick Jadot proposed that on April 17, but it is now too late”, supports Marine Tondelier, one of Yannick Jadot’s spokespersons, about this proposal “improvised” and “not serious”. Apart from Arnaud Montebourg, who welcomes the initiative of the Parisian councilor, the main left-wing candidates refuse the idea of a primary. “There was a kind of awkward rush, we could have allowed ourselves a little time”, regrets Cédric Van Styvendael, one of Anne Hidalgo’s spokespersons.
“Brutally” Rejected, in the words of a party official, the Socialists at least congratulate themselves on having made people talk about them. “We’re coming back to the center of attention”, analyzes a member of the campaign team, half-amused, half-enthusiastic. From there to transforming this stroke of poker into a master stroke, the step is very high. “We don’t know where we are going”, concedes the same man, “but at one point, it became untenable”. What does it matter if Anne Hidalgo converted late to the principle of a primary after having publicly criticized it. “I am not in favor of this type of primaries. (…) We do not carry the same proposals “, she confided, on November 19, on Public Senate. “I changed my mind”, recognizes the candidate on the set of LCI, Thursday evening.
The union of left-wing forces could go through the Popular Primary, this citizens’ initiative aimed at granting a nomination to a single left-wing candidate, at the end of January. From 228,000 on Wednesday morning, the number of registrants jumped to 258,000 on Friday noon. Its organizers expected between 300,000 and 400,000 registered at the end of the process, before Anne Hidalgo chose “to accompany” the appointment. They are now targeting the million people mobilized to nominate their candidate, from January 27 to 30.
Thursday morning, the organizers of the Popular Primary met Olivier Faure for an hour to set the practical arrangements for this meeting. Initially planned in a digital version, the ballot could have a physical variation. In any case, this is what the socialist leaders want, “in order to avoid technological bias”.
For Anne Hidalgo’s team, time is running out: we have to convince the other candidates as quickly as possible to join the primary process, however reluctant they may be at the moment. Yannick Jadot and environmentalists are the main targets of this maneuver: “Between them, it’s already a mess”, rejoices a socialist parliamentarian. “They are going to be under pressure until Christmas because we are not going to stop talking to them about the union of the left.” According to Release, the departmental officials of the PS will “send a letter to their counterparts from all parties (LFI / EE-LV / PCF / PRG / Place Publique…) asking them to take an official position on the organization of the primary”.
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This pressure at the local level is coupled with an argument hammered at the national level: basically, why could socialists, ecologists and even “rebels” not agree on a common project? “Program differences, we are looking for them a bit”, minor Cédric Van Styvendael. “I don’t see a lot of debates we’re at daggers drawn.”
“There are no more differences than in 1970 between the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.”
Rémi Lefebvre, political scientistto franceinfo
For the time being, everyone is standing in their positions, some trying to attract others to a primary rejected by them. Socialists rely on an Odoxa-Mascaret poll to The Obs, published Friday, in which 86% of supporters of the left say they want their camp to be united in April 2022. In the same poll, Christiane Taubira is illustrated as the favorite personality of supporters of the left, with 67% of good opinions. Enough to grow the rumors about a return to politics of the former Minister of Justice, who could speak soon about his participation or not in the primary in January.
To evacuate the question of union, the communists, the ecologists and the “rebellious” insist for their part on the basic differences and the bad scenarios of the past: in 2017, Yannick Jadot had withdrawn in favor of Benoît Hamon, two months before the first round. Result: a score of 6.36% for Benoît Hamon, against 19% for a solo Jean-Luc Mélenchon, admittedly supported by the Communists.
Gathered behind a single candidate, would the left be able to climb to the second round of the presidential election in four months? “We have launched a machine to differentiate each other from the others. Now it’s too late”, regretted Tuesday Clémentine Autain (LFI), who has long pushed for a rally of the left. If today “the train is on” in view of the primary, dixit Anne Hidalgo, the obstacles on the rails leading to the Elysee are still numerous. With or without union of the left.