No candidate is consensus on the left for 2022, how to explain it?

Anne Hidalgo, Christiane Taubira, Anne Hidalgo and to a lesser extent Arnaud Montebourg are among the preferred candidates of left voters for the 2022 presidential election. (Archives) -

• The ball of candidates on the left for the 2022 presidential election has started, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has even already left, but no one stands out.

• Yet, according to polls, voters on the left are calling for a single candidacy, seen by many as the only option to get to the second round.

• Mathieu Gallard, from Ipsos, thinks it is too early anyway and that the consensus, if it has to be achieved, will take place on the ability to win more than on ideological questions.

We have probably not finished hearing about attempts to unite the left, or the left, for the presidential election of 2022. The prospect of a single candidacy interests many people and for good reason: y ' has demand.

This Sunday, Ifop indicates that nearly three quarters of sympathizers of the left are asking for it.

And then the cake is interesting: at the 2019 Europeans, one in three votes went to one of the five (!) Left lists.

That is more than for the right-wing (14.5%), center (22.4%) and extreme right (24%) lists.

But then who?

For the moment, nobody wants to leave the place, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is even already gone, and nobody emerges.

In this same survey, Ifop is testing no less than eleven applications and four are considered good by more than 50% of those questioned: Christiane Taubira, Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Benoît Hamon.

To see more clearly,

interviewed Mathieu Gallard, research director at Ipsos.

Left-wing supporters seem to want a single candidacy but when asked about first-round scenarios with a single candidate… the mayonnaise, for now, doesn't seem to be taking hold.

Why ?

It can be explained in two different ways.

First, by telling yourself that it is because there are quite strong ideological differences within the left electorate.

And that therefore, even if they are overwhelmingly in favor of the idea of ​​a single candidacy (because they realize that this is about the only chance for the left to win in 2022), they wish this unique candidacy to be made on their own ideological option.

This is undoubtedly a reality for part of the electorate, but it should not be exaggerated.

There is a second possible explanation.

Part of this electorate, which calls itself left, is not very ideological.

These people may have a preference but above all want a candidate who will make them win.

We saw it very well in 2017, by looking at the second choice of voters in the polls: at Mélenchon, it was not Hamon, it was Macron.

And among Macron's voters who came from the left, the second choice was not Hamon, it was Mélenchon.

It seems counterintuitive, given the ideological differences.

This is explained by the fact that at the time Emmanuel Macron could, a little more than today, be considered as a center-left candidate and that part of this electorate first wanted to vote for the candidate. better placed for the left to win.

We probably still have that today, but there is not yet a consensus on which candidacy would be the best.

No one emerges.

Nobody backs off because it's just too early?

Absolutely !

We are far from the deadline and we are, in most cases except that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with candidates who are testing the ground.

This necessarily creates indecision within the electorate of the left, which does not know very well where it is.

But I'm not sure it's worrying.

By then there will still be regional elections, which can help clarify the situation, too.

In European polls, the green, socialist and communist electorates, to a lesser extent rebellious, were not so far apart ideologically.

Is it still true?

This is still the case: there is no massive divide within the left electorate.

Whether on economic issues or others.

There are differences but overall most voters share the same base of values.

The idea of ​​"irreconcilable lefts" is however widely theorized ...

I think this is grossly overkill.

For example, we do a lot on the question of identity.

And it is true that there are divisions on this subject within the electorate and within the left electorate as well.

But, generally, for these voters, it is not the priority issue.

The priority is economic and social issues.

If the campaign is based on identity issues, indeed for the left it will be extremely difficult.

But if a left-wing candidate manages to ensure that the campaign takes place above all on economic and social issues, purchasing power, unemployment, the social protection system in the post-epidemic context, that can change a lot of things. .

Jean-Luc Mélenchon has already left for a campaign: having several candidates on the left is necessarily prohibitive?

One can very well imagine a multiplicity of candidates on the left.

Candidates from the far left, that of Mélenchon, another rather from the PS, a rather green ... However, if one of these candidates creates a dynamic around him, because he puts forward the good stakes, that he has an attractive personality, what do I know… One can imagine that, despite everything, the electorate of the left turns quite strongly towards him and that it may be enough, if all the planets are well aligned, to go to the second round .

A bit like the dynamic around Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2017, who did not go so far from qualifying.

In view of the opinion studies that you read, that you carry out, do we have an idea of ​​the composite portrait of the ideal left candidate for voters of the left?

I think what the voters of the left are waiting for today is a candidate who is strong on the economic and social issue and on the ecological issue.

These are the two major concerns of this electorate.

Afterwards, in a context where the left has been quite strongly discredited for several years, we need a candidate who appears credible to lead the country.

What is not necessarily easy to find: a candidate with a ministerial background?

But then it would be more of a socialist, except that the PS is in a weak position.

Or a candidate who led a region or mayor of a large city, etc.

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