Anne Hidalgo and the PS, crisis of support, crisis of ideas
Audio 03:14
Anne Hidalgo, September 12, 2021, in Rouen, announces her candidacy for the 2022 presidential election. © AP - Michel Euler
By: Aurélien Devernoix
6 mins
A week after the declaration of candidacy for the presidential election of Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist Party is organizing its congress in Villeurbanne this weekend.
The opportunity to work on the presidential project of the candidate who herself phosphorus on her side.
But who says project, says intellectuals, experts and members of civil society to feed it.
The problem is, the socialists have seen their brains network dwindle in recent years.
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Intellectuals have deserted the PS
Example in Rouen last Sunday Anne Hidalgo mentioned the writers Victor Hugo and Corneille, the painter Claude Monet and even Joan of Arc but not a word of a somewhat more recent intellectual or artistic inspiration. And "
it is not very surprising
", according to Thibaut Rioufreyt, specialist in the history of socialist ideas, because "
the intellectuals deserted the PS
". Getting into politics is less obvious and natural than in the past, and it can be expensive in a career. Gone are therefore companionship, also gone are the circles of reflection which for decades fueled socialist thought. A form of disenchantment that has political explanations: departure of Jean Luc Mélenchon and thinkers hostile to liberal Europe in 2008, rupture in 2017 with Benoît Hamon and the current of the fight against inequalities fueled by the economist Thomas Piketty, without count those attracted by the sirens of Emmanuel Macron. But according to Thibaut Rioufreyt, it is also "
the culmination of a technocratic logic, the recourse to experts, to think only of elections rather than of ideas
". A logic that has reached its climax with the five-year term of François Hollande, "
but a party without ideas has difficulty in attracting intellectuals.
"
Anne Hidalgo tries to correct the situation
The mayor of Paris wants above all to avoid offering an image that is too elitist: her campaign team is largely made up of mayors and local elected officials with one obsession: finding solutions at the height of men and women.
The support that the candidate will gradually reveal will therefore be personalities from civil society, association officials, business leaders, but also some intellectuals met through her mandates at the head of Paris.
Anne Hidalgo thus wants to move away from the technocratic image of the PS and keeps her distance from the party while developing campaign ideas that she hopes will be attractive: a strong republic, social justice and ecological transition.
The problem, according to Thibaut Rioufreyt, is that this candidacy comes late and with only 6 months of preparation.
Result, "
she will return to better feelings towards the party
" judges a leader of the PS, "
because a presidential election is not built like a municipal election
".
Scattering of applications, scattering of ideas
At least 7 candidates are on the starting line for the presidential election on the left side.
However, the more candidates you have, the more support is scattered.
A dominant party can accommodate several currents of thought which by cohabiting arrive at consensual solutions.
In the configuration of 2022, each chapel of thought has its candidate and this limits the electoral potential.
Not easy therefore to gather but "
if a candidate escapes in the voting intentions on the left, he will win all the support
" estimates a member of the campaign team of Anne Hidalgo, who judges that the candidate "
must quickly pass the 10% bar
”under penalty of seeing those who are still lurking in the shadows fly away for more promising horizons.
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French politics
Presidential France 2022