French left tries ‘people’s primary’ to pick presidential candidate

A four-day "people's primary", to pick a left-wing candidate for the French presidency from a divided and squabbling field, ends Sunday with doubts remaining that a unifying figure on the left will emerge.

Published: 30 January 2022 16:00 CET

A sticker of French left-wing candidate to the "people's primary" presidential contest Christiane Taubira is worn on the coat of a supporter as she visits the vineyard of Chateau la Tuilere in Saint-Ciers-de-Canesse, near Bordeaux on January 28, 2022, while campaigning ahead of the April 2022 presidential election. - Multiple left-wing presidential candidates are set to be judged in the "people's primary" contest designed to reduce left-wing presidential candidates. A total of 467 000 people have signed up to take part in the online vote which will see seven designated candidates, five professional politicians and two civil society, ranked on a scale from "very good" to "inadequate". But three major candidates already planed to ignore the result. (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ / AFP)

A total of 467,000 people have signed up to take part in the online vote, which started on Thursday. They have to rank five professional politicians and two civil society candidates on a scale from “very good” to “inadequate”.

Whoever wins the best grades average would be expected to rally all the other candidates and their voters behind them, giving the left a fighting change to unseat President Emmanuel Macron in the April election.

But the exercise, initiated by political activists including environmentalists, feminists and anti-racism groups, has been dogged by
serious drawbacks.

The biggest is the upfront refusal by leading candidates Jean-Luc Melenchon, a hard-left politician, Yannick Jadot, a Green, and Socialist Anne Hidalgo to pay any attention to its result.

“As far as I’m concerned, the popular primary is a non-starter and has been for a while,” Jadot said Saturday, while Melenchon has called the initiative “obscure” and “a farce”.

The best-placed politician to win the grassroots endorsement is former Socialist justice minister Christiane Taubira, who has said she would accept the primary’s verdict.

A win Sunday for the well-liked Taubira could prompt her to declare a formal bid for the presidency.

But analysts would not rule out that Melenchon, Jadot or Hidalgo could still emerge as the winner despite their rejection of the primary, which could lead to more confusion.

Polls currently predict that all left-wing candidates will be eliminated in the first round of presidential voting in April.

Macron, who has yet to declare his candidacy for re-election, is the favourite to win according to surveys, with the far-right’s Marine Le Pen the likely runner-up.

But pollsters warn that the political landscape remains volatile, with the vote’s outcome very difficult to call.

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE