“Hello. Anne Hidalgo’s first proposals!” Gathered in the early morning under the roof of the Canopée des Halles, at the exit of the Paris metro, half a dozen young socialist activists are towing for their candidate. This Wednesday, January 12, despite the biting cold, the lowered gaze of passers-by and the gloomy atmosphere of the countryside, they continue to distribute their leaflets. “We are not going to lie to each other, the polls are not telling us great scores”, recognizes Joachim.
“When I tow in the markets, all the sympathizers tell us that if we do not unite, it will be the catastrophe announced for the left.”
Joachim, PS activistto franceinfo
The failure of the proposal for a primary on the left launched by Anne Hidalgo, in which only Christiane Taubira chose to participate – as part of the popular primary – caused many disappointments on the ground. “The history of the popular primary has somewhat confused some activists, Joachim admits. But hey, now we know that we will go to the end. And then there are always surprises in a presidential election … “ Activists are now hoping to see their candidate relaunch her campaign. To this end, the mayor of Paris must detail her program – which franceinfo was able to consult and which has 70 proposals – this Thursday, after a stint at the morning of France Inter. It must then present its local committees on January 20, before a meeting in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) on the 22, and probably a TV passage by the end of the month.
This is not the first time that Anne Hidalgo has tried to relaunch a campaign that never really got off the ground. As soon as she entered the race, on September 12, 2021, she gave the image of a candidate that her camp pushed to run while she repeated during the municipal campaign not to be interested in the Elysee.
She then tries to split the armor, revealing herself in particular in a book, A French woman, published on September 15 (ed. of L’Observatoire). The “storytelling” can then be set up: that of a Spanish worker daughter, having grown up in the underprivileged district of La Duchère, in Lyon. But in the field, it does not take. Its notoriety remains rather weak and its label of Parisian “bobo” sticks to its skin, as demonstrated by a report from “Complément d’études” in the streets of Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme). “Have you ever heard of her?”, launches the journalist to a passer-by. “No never.”
Weeks go by and the Socialist struggles to find a place for herself in the countryside. The journalists accompanying the candidate noticed the difficulty she encountered in going to speak to the French. Anne Hidalgo is fighting a silent battle. After a first meeting in October in Lille in front of a thousand people, she organized small meetings in modest rooms that she struggled to fill. “We would have preferred the campaign to print in the fall, but it didn’t print, today recognizes Senator PS Rémi Féraud. There were of course internal errors, but also a climate totally dominated by the right and the far right. And the bursting of the political offer on the left has created demobilization… “
On December 8, she took the train to La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime) for a new stage of her Tour de France to meet the French. But suddenly decides to go down to Poitiers (Vienne) to turn around. Officially, it is a question of returning because of the triggering of the white plan in the capital, linked to the new wave of Covid-19. But 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.
The bet turns out to be daring. “She tried… We can’t blame her for having divided the left”, notes the young senator Rémi Cardon, his spokesperson in the campaign. “She tried to find a way out to unite around a dynamic, and it was not followed up … Jadot takes a heavy responsibility”, adds Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein.
But what did Anne Hidalgo gain in this primary school story? If not to put his own candidacy on hold and have made a new one emerge. “We are not going to lie to each other, the Taubira candidacy is one more difficulty”, concedes Rémi Cardon. What sow even more confusion among socialist activists. “We have not clarified our political line. Today, we have no backbone”, laments a PS activist, a political science student in Toulouse.
“What program are we campaigning on? Which candidate? We give the impression that we are still choosing him…”
A socialist activistto franceinfo
“Today, yes, there can be confusion. The voters are lost, but the presentation of the project or the meeting of the 22nd will clarify the situation”, assures Rémi Féraud. “The 13th, she will say what she wants to build with the French, there will be a message of clarity from where she wants to take France”, engages Rémi Cardon.
But do they even believe in it? Faced with journalists, the language elements are the same: combativeness and determination. “Our state of mind is offensive”, says Jean-François Debat, PS mayor of Bourg-en-Bresse. “Anne Hidalgo is combative”, adds Rémi Féraud. “I was with her for 13 or 14 hours at a stretch in Jarnac, I felt someone extremely motivated”, supports Patrick Kanner.
The Socialists are reassured above all by comparing themselves to other left-wing candidates. “I would be worried if we were the only ones on the left to be in this dead calm, but everyone is there”, slips a socialist. It is true that no candidate stood out clearly from the others. “The fragmentation of the political offer into seven or eight candidatures does not make it possible to build a credible, efficient transmitter. Today, the PS no longer plays its role of dominant party on the left but no one is, nor LFI, nor EELV “, notes Laurent Baumel, national secretary of the PS. It is not a triumph to make 6% rather than 4%. “
“The left is so far neither watched nor listened to by voters.”
Laurent Baumel, national secretary of the PSto franceinfo
“The campaign is complicated for all the left-wing candidates”, still recognizes a socialist. But at Anne Hidalgo, the internal divisions are now displayed in broad daylight. While those close to him repeat that a primary without Yannick Jadot does not make sense and that it is now necessary to turn the page, some members of the PS are more dubious. Witness the national office – “extremely tense, not to say twilight”, in the words of a participant – which was held by videoconference Tuesday evening with a hundred executives. The debates, which lasted three and a half hours, were lively on the participation or not of the mayor of Paris in this popular primary.
“There was a debate to know if it was appropriate to ask activists to register for the popular primary, to protect the candidate, as is surely the case with Mélenchon or with Jadot”, reports a participant. “Our problem is that we told the comrades to go vote in the primary. We did not decide on our position in the PS, but we have to go without saying that we are going”, press another.
“We are doing a first-class funeral for Anne Hidalgo. And at the same time, it’s kind of her who put herself in this situation.”
A participant in the PS national officeto franceinfo
They are thus several to express their distress. “We believed that Anne Hidalgo was going to rely on the primary to get out of the presidential election from above, or to try to win, confides another socialist. Now she says she wants to go all the way without going through primary. What do we say to people? That we backtracked? “
The big clarification is therefore perhaps not for now. But those close to Anne Hidalgo know that time is running out. “The next three weeks will be decisive, things will crystallize at the end of January / beginning of February”, predicts Yannick Trigance, national secretary of the PS. Is it already too late? “It’s never too late, as long as the match is not over anything is possible”, assures the latter. Yet difficult to believe, between the bad polls and a candidate with little media stuck in her contradictions. In an article from World dating from September, his relatives believed that “if no dynamic emerges in its favor by January”, it would be too late. “We didn’t say when in January, defends himself weakly Patrick Kanner. Maybe we won’t be there at the end of January, I’ll grant you … but we have to fight. “
The calendar obsesses the Socialists beyond the presidential election. Some also have their eyes riveted on the legislative elections. “After a potential presidential failure, the second wave is the legislative elections”, warns Rémi Cardon.
“Will there be a political group on the left in the National Assembly? I ask myself the question and it is more than a concern”.
Rémi Cardon, PS senatorto franceinfo
The senator hopes that “both legs” of French democracy will not be “the right and the extreme right”. But Anne Hidalgo’s spokesperson immediately recovered: “Nothing is lost. We can also create a dynamic with a proposal that will create debate”. On the ground, some activists hardly believe any more. “I think we can forget the socialist candidacy for this presidential election. We have to be lucid”, blows an activist.