French socialists head closer to implosion as more jump ship for Macron

ItIt was while Socialist Party presidential candidate Benoît Hamon was on a campaign tour in eastern France to set out his policies on defence issues, notably during a visit to the 1st infantry regiment in Sarrebourg, that defence minister and fellow socialist Jean-Yves Le Drian made known his decision to back not Hamon but maverick centrist Emmanuel Macron.

For Hamon’s entourage it was clear confirmation that a section of the French Socialist Party is trying to scuttle his campaign, even if that leads to the party’s implosion in the coming months.

For several weeks, Le Drian’s decision to support Macron appeared imminent, despite the disapproval of local socialist politicians in his political fiefdom of Brittany, and in particular those on the Breton regional council presided by Le Drian. But the defence minister, who naturally knew of Hamon’s visit to the infantry regiment, chose the day when the Socialist Party candidate was due to highlight his defence policy proposals.

Regional daily Ouest-France, which covers Brittany, announced on Thursday morning that it would be publishing an interview with Le Drian in its Friday issue, and it was clear that it would be the moment Le Drian would publicly announce his backing for Macron. Shortly after, Marylise Lebranchu, a socialist MP for a constituency in Brittany, a party veteran who has served several ministerial posts (notably that of justice minister and, from 2012 until last year, as Minister for Decentralisation, State Reform and the Public Sector), took to Twitter (see below). “The Minister of Defence announces his departure for Macron the day when Benoît Hamon addresses the army,” she wrote. “It’s ugly”.

Hamon’s campaign spokespeople issued a statement slamming Le Drian’s desertion of his party’s candidate: “For several weeks some of those who were disappointed with the result of the primary organize the serial saga of their rallying with another candidate,” read the statement. “Elected as an MP by voters of the Left for 40 years, Jean-Yves Le Drian doesn’t respect the electorate of the Left who, including in the Morbihan [département of Brittany where Le Drian has his political base], largely chose Benoît Hamon as their candidate for this presidential election. It is unacceptable in a democracy that political leaders only heed the vote of the electorate when it suits them.”

Another Breton socialist, MEP Isabelle Thomas, who is also a member of Hamon’s election campaign team, was similarly scathing of Le Drian. “By adhering to that [Macron’s movement] Jean-Yves Le Drian has joined his enemies of forever, the centre-right,” she said on Twitter. “For a man of the Left, it’s a terrible resignation.”

As for Hamon himself, he told Europe 1 radio on Friday: “I was not expecting so many betrayals […] What strikes me is that today, when the [far-right] Front National, a profoundly anti-democratic party, is at the gates of power, the most elementary principle, which consist of respecting democracy, is forgotten.”

It was a hard blow for Hamon. Le Drian, who has been defence minister for five years and who is close to President François Hollande, is a strongly popular politician. The minister’s move was the latest in a catalogue of socialist defections towards Macron, coming as Hamon struggles in opinion surveys of voting intentions (with about 16%, well behind front-runner Macron), and just days after an uninspiring performance during the first of the live TV debates between candidates last Monday.

It was shortly after that debate that  Bernard Poignant, a senior advisor to President Hollande, publicly announced his support for Macron, along with two junior ministers, Barbara Pompili (Secretary of State for Biodiversity), and Thierry Braillard (Secretary of State for Sport), and former transport and fisheries minister Frédéric Cuvillier.

Meanwhile, François Rebsamen, mayor of Dijon, a former minister and an ally of Hollande’s, who is officially a member of Hamon’s campaign team, announced that, while he supports Hamon, he is pondering a vote for Macron in the first round of voting next month. “If there was the slightest threat of a second [and final] round that pitches [conservative candidate, François] Fillon against [far-right candidate, Marine] Le Pen, I could obviously vote for Emmanuel Macron as of the first round,” said Rebsamen.

Speaking in private, a number of socialists are readying themselves for a clear defeat of Hamon in the first-round vote on April 23rd, and some are betting that the socialist candidate will score less than his radical-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Many of those in the camp of former prime minister Manuel Valls, who represents the rightwing of the Socialist Party and who lost to Hamon in the party’s primary, have already jumped ship. On March 19th, the same day as Hamon held a major public meeting in Paris, weekly paper Le JDD published an opinion article by Valls which was scathing of Hamon’s manifesto.

Those still loyal to François Hollande, meanwhile, are remaining tight-lipped. One of them, agriculture minister and government spokesman Stéphane Le Foll, during a private meeting with socialist militants in northern France, reportedly told them that Hollande’s camp would make public which candidate it advised voting for “before the first round” but that no initiative should be taken until then. “The only thing that counts is to keep the party [together],” he reportedly said.

The organizers of the socialist primary, the HAPC, a board which acted as an administrative regulator of the election, took their time in reacting to Valls’s attacks against Hamon, which violated the charter that Valls and others running in the contest had signed in which they pledged to support whichever of their rivals won. It was only last Thursday, after several members of the HAPC had threatened to resign if no action was taken, that the board’s chairman, Thomas Clay, finally issued a statement. “Such behaviour seriously contravenes the principle of loyalty and the very spirit of the primaries,” it stated.

At Socialist Party headquarters, on the rue de Solferino in central Paris, some fulltime officials – the large majority of who voted for Hamon’s nomination as party candidate – expressed their unease. “It’s not that the party leadership is not campaigning [with Hamon], it’s worse than that, it encourages doing nothing,” said one official, speaking on condition their name is withheld. “It’s an almost intentional inaction by the leadership,” said another, also requesting his name is withheld. “Jean-Christophe Cambadélis [Socialist Party secretary- general] does little to put the party machine behind Benoît Hamon. Or if he does, belatedly.”

Officially, party leader Cambadélis is naturally behind Hamon, who convincingly beat Valls in the final round of the primary elections. But Cambadélis has annoyed the Hamon campaign team, notably in his hesitations over the party’s reaction to those who have come out in favour of Macron. In early February, Cambadélis pledged to exclude from the party those socialist MPs who publicly announced their support for the former economy minister. Then, in March, he said he would not take action. No meeting is planned between Hamon and Cambadélis before the presidential election first round vote next month.

With legislative elections due in June, immediately after the presidential contest, the Socialist Party leader has focussed his attention on preparing his re-election as MP in his north-Paris constituency. All the while, he has maintained a certain profile in the media election coverage, with an eye to keeping his post as party secretary-general after the hypothetical election of Macron as president, when he would, if still in his job, lead negotiations for political alliances in the legislative poll. But he could rightly argue that Hamon’s camp have done little to keep him involved in the presidential campaign. “At our end too, some are tempted to avoid wanting to bother with the party,” said one of Hamon’s close entourage.

The situation is reminiscent of the presidential election campaign of Hollande’s former partner, and current environment minister, Ségolène Royal in 2007, when she ran as the Socialist Party’s ill-fated candidate against Nicolas Sarkozy. At the time, she received little public backing from senior party officials. The difference between Royal and Hamon is that she, immediately after her nomination as party candidate, launched her own movement within the party, Désirs d’avenir.

“There is no problem with the Socialist Party,” said Gwenegan Bui, one of Hamon’s team and who accompanied the latter on his visit to Alsace last Thursday. “There are a few socialists who try to make things difficult for us, [but] there’s no turnaround in the party machine,” said Bui. Another of Hamon’s team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “We don’t want to renounce the party. And it’s not exactly that the Socialist Party is torpedoing our campaign. It’s more a question of torpor in the party, which causes a demobilisation among the militants.”

Hamon’s visit to Alsace last Thursday was given little attention beforehand by the local socialist branch, and it was largely organised without its help. The same day, regional daily Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace published an open letter of support for Hamon by 200 socialist politicians, including MPs, mayors and local councillors, complaining of the lack of support given to Hamon’s visit. “The presence this evening of Candidate Hamon at the Kléber bookshop in Strasbourg was indeed made known by [party] militants on the social media but did not prompt a more official coverage,” they complained. “It was the same for his presence this afternoon at the Cronenbourg cemetery in Strasbourg and his speech on national defence issues.”

The situation is also the result of the recurrent tensions over the years, and during Hollande’s presidency, between the different political currents within the Socialist Party. These have now reached a point where it appears uncertain that the party will survive, in its current form, following what has become, for both Left and Right, a most extraordinary presidential election campaign.

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• The French version of this article can be found here.

English version by Graham Tearse