Raphaël Glucksmann’s list finishes in third place with 14%, according to our Ipsos estimate

The Socialist Party-Public Square list is hot on the heels of the presidential camp but finishes far behind the National Rally.

Raphaël Glucksmann confirmed the good polls which followed one after the other during the campaign. The list of the Socialist Party and the Place publique movement led by the essayist finished in third position in the European elections on Sunday June 9. With 14% of the vote, according to an Ipsos estimate for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24, RFI, Public Senate and LCP National Assembly, she comes just behind the list of the presidential camp (14.7%).

Raphaël Glucksmann, however, finished very far behind the National Rally (31.5%). The Socialists, who had seven MEPs within the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, will therefore gain seats and send five to seven additional elected officials to Strasbourg and Brussels.

How did the party react after the results?

Around 8:15 p.m., Raphaël Glucksmann spoke to his supporters in Paris and said he “proud” of his score. At the same time, the leader of the Place publique movement declared that he had not “not in the mood for the party” after the high score of the National Rally, which he promised to “combat”. “It’s a new political space” which is opening, he nevertheless congratulated himself. A little earlier, Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist Party, estimated that Emmanuel Macron was “disqualified” after the results and the victory of the far right.

Who are the elected candidates and with which group will they sit?

Among the elected candidates, only four MEPs will have a second term: Raphaël Glucksmann, Nora Mebarek, Aurore Lalucq and Christophe Clergeau, replacing the resigning Eric Andrieu in June 2023. The others will enter the European Parliament for the first time. These MEPs will unsurprisingly sit within the group of the progressive alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), which constitutes the second force in the hemicycle behind the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and ahead of the Liberal Democrats by Renew.

How did the socialist campaign go?

After negotiations with the socialist apparatus, Raphaël Glucksmann was again designated head of the list in February 2024. The composition of the list was approved by 80% by the activists, a significant score in a party which has deeply divided internally on his strategy since 2022. Supporter of massive support for Ukraine, the essayist benefited from a positive dynamic at the end of winter thanks to a clearly Europhile positioning.

The socialist list gradually stabilized above 10% of voting intentions, until the end of the campaign, despite increasingly virulent criticism from its environmentalist and rebellious competitors. Close behind in the polls, Valérie Hayer and the presidential camp have gradually targeted the socialist candidate by assimilating him to his former allies within the Nupes. Without succeeding in stopping the socialist dynamic in recent weeks.

What will be the consequences for the PS and the left after this score?

The Socialist Party is doing better than in 2019 but also than in 2014 (13.98%), when François Hollande was in power, if the estimates are confirmed in the final figures. With this good score, lower than that of 2009 (16.28%), the PS distances La France insoumise and Les Ecologistes, three years before the next presidential election.

A few months after the breakup of Nupes, formed in 2022, the rose party will try to shake up the balance of power with its former allies, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement wants to maintain its hegemony.

On the other hand, the current leadership of the party, embodied by Olivier Faure, does not want to see in the result of the PS-Place publique list a blank check for the return to the forefront of figures skeptical or even hostile to the alliance from the left, like François Hollande or Anne Hidalgo.