With just ten weeks to go before voting begins in the first round of France’s presidential elections, newly-elected Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon has revealed a campaign team made up of fellow leftwingers but also of allies of President François Hollande and former prime minister Manuel Valls. While Hamon’s olive branch to the party’s Right may dissipate its predicted desertion in favour of maverick centrist Emmanuel Macron, it suggests there can be little, if any, chance that he can reach an alliance with radical-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Mediapart political analyst Hubert Huertas sketches here the fundamental divide between Mélenchon and Hamon and what is at stake for the future of the Socialist Party.
The list of victims of the recent presidential primary elections held by the Left and Right in France is remarkable. Two presidents, two prime ministers and a number of senior former ministers have been rejected after rebellious voters gave their verdicts. The primary process - which ended on Sunday with the unlikely election of Benoît Hamon as the official socialist candidate for the presidential contest – has proved something of an earthquake for the French political establishment, writes Hubert Huertas.
Benoît Hamon, the leftist candidate bidding for the Socialist Party’s nomination to run in France’s presidential elections this spring, has won a resounding victory over his rival, the former prime minister Manuel Valls, in the final round of the primary contest on Sunday. Hamon, 49, who represents a clear break with the policies of the current socialist government and President François Hollande, will run on a manifesto that eats into that of the radical-left, with significant consequences for the spread of the vote in the presidential election, and also on the future cohesion of France’s beleaguered Socialist Party. Follow the results and reactions as they happened throughout the evening in this live report.
British daily The Guardian reviews the state of the French Left ahead of this weekend's vote to choose the presidential election candidate for the Socialist Party and its allies.
The first round of the French Socialist Party’s primaries to choose its candidate for this spring’s presidential elections saw leftist former education minister Benoît Hamon arrive in the lead, followed in second place by Manuel Valls, on the party’s Right and who last month resigned as prime minister to take part in the race. Hamon now has a significant chance of winning the second and final round between the two men to be held next Sunday. But whatever the result, the deeply divided Socialist Party faces implosion. Mathieu Magnaudeix and Christophe Gueugneau followed the two camps as the results unfolded during Sunday evening.
Former education minister Benoît Hamon, who left the socialist government led by prime minister Manuel Valls citing his opposition to its austerity policies, came ahead of Valls in the first of the two-round Socialist Party primaries to choose its candidate for next spring's presidential elections, with a final play-off between the two due in the final round next Sunday.
Fewer voters took part in the first round of socialist primaries to choose a presidential election candidate than in the last contest in 2011, numbering 1 million at the end of the afternoon across 70% of polling stations.
The seven rivals to become the socialist candidate for this spring's presidential candidate concuded their three debates aired on national television on Thursday, with voting to begin this Sunday in a two round contest that many observers report will in reality define the candidate most likely to pick up the pieces of a landslide vote against the Left in this spring's presidential elections.
Last Thursday the seven candidates in the Socialist Party's primary to choose a presidential candidate took part in the first of three televised debates. Mediapart joined a group of party members watching the first debate at Roubaix near Lille in northern France, which is historically one of the staunchest of socialist strongholds in France. As Amélie Poinssot discovered, many grassroots activists are still hopeful the party can be rebuilt despite the massive disappointment of François Hollande's presidency.
The four main contenders to be the official mainstream socialist candidate for the 2017 French presidential elections, Benoît Hamon, Arnaud Montebourg, Vincent Peillon and Manuel Valls, know each other extremely well. For more than 20 years the members of this quartet have occupied important positions and roles in the Socialist Party and were once hailed as a new generation destined to modernise the party. Now, having never been able to form lasting alliances among themselves, and having been 'blocked' by the generation above them, the four are all standing against each other in the party's primary to choose a candidate for the Elysée. Stéphane Alliès and Donatien Huet report on four politicians who have waited a long time for their chance to become president.
