The mayor of Paris admits that the lack of an echo in the rest of the parties and, especially, the rejection of the environmentalists empties her proposal of content
Less than a hundred days before the first round of the presidential elections in France, Anne Hidalgo, socialist candidate and mayor of Paris, buried this Saturday the idea of holding a left-wing primary as she herself had proposed. Hidalgo, born in San Fernando (Cádiz), acknowledged the failure of her initiative to organize a primary to present a single left-wing candidate in the April presidential elections. And he regretted the lack of agreement between the different formations, especially the environmental candidate Yannick Jadot’s refusal to participate in this consultation.
“For the moment there has been no agreement on this proposal,” acknowledged Franco-Spanish policy in Jarnac (western France), where he visited the grave of former socialist president François Mitterrand. “If the Greens are not present, that can no longer be called primaries,” said Hidalgo. Despite this setback, the mayor does not throw in the towel and will appear in the April elections to continue defending socialist ideas.
Sunk in the voting intention polls, the popular Paris councilor proposed in early December to organize a left-wing primary. The ecologist Yannick Jadot, the communist Fabien Roussel and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La Francia Insoumise (the French Podemos), flatly rejected the invitation. The only one who supported his idea was the ex-socialist Arnaud Montebourg, candidate of the minority La Remontada.
The initiative, however, seduced left-wing voters. Two out of three supporters (65%) believed it was “a good idea”, while 24% considered it “bad”, according to a Viavoice poll for the daily ‘Libération’.
The big problem with the French left is that it is very fragmented. Of its seven candidates, none surpasses the symbolic bar of 10% vote intention in the first round. If they performed together, which is not going to happen, they would have a chance of qualifying for the second round.
But what unites and what divides the French left? Are your programs incompatible? “On the left, our convergences are enough to allow us to govern together for five years”, considers Christiane Taubira, former Minister of Justice of the socialist François Hollande and an emblematic figure of the French left, in a recent opinion article in ‘Le Monde’.
Coincidences and differences
The former minister believes that these parties are “united by a collective destiny that transcends personal vicissitudes.” Taubira, with a voting intention of 3% according to some polls, is convinced that she may be the candidate who achieves the unity of the left. In mid-January, he will announce if he is finally running for office. Doing so could further divide the left and remove votes from its opponents.
The candidates agree on their programs on some points: they defend the increase in the minimum wage (1,258 euros net currently in France), they promise to invest more in hospitals and public schools, they oppose the pension reform and they are in favor of the creation of a climate tax on large fortunes.
Taubira acknowledges that, despite the fact that there are also convergences in their programs, the left parties have a tendency to “invent insurmountable quarrels” among themselves. For example, one of the issues that divides this sector is France’s relationship with the European Union. Faced with Hidalgo and Jadot, who are Europeanists, like President Macron, Mélenchon defends the exit from the European treaties.
Likewise, there are differences between the candidates in the debate on energy sources: some are in favor of abandoning the path of nuclear power plants and others consider that it is necessary to maintain an energy mix with renewables. And they don’t agree on the retirement age, either.
If this Sunday the first round of the presidential elections were held in France, Emmanuel Macron would obtain 25.5% of the votes; the far-right Marine Le Pen, 17%; the conservative Valérie Pécresse, 16%; the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour, 12%; Mélenchon, 9%; Jadot, 8% and Hidalgo, 4.5%, according to the latest Ipsos poll. Macron and Le Pen would qualify for the second round as they were the two most voted candidates.
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