Presidential 2022: are primaries inevitable on the left and on the right?
Verification of an identity card during the second round of the left primary for the French presidential election of 2017, in Trappes on January 29, 2017. AFP - CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT
Text by: RFI Follow
6 min
14 months before the French presidential election, a question torments the former government parties: should we organize primaries to nominate their candidates?
Vaccinated by their defeat in 2017, the Socialist Party and The Republicans refuse to resort again to this mode of designation perceived as a machine to divide.
But how to designate their champion when no one wins?
This is the dilemma facing the right and the left.
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By Anthony Lattier and Anne Soëtemondt,
On the left, the time has come for candidates to hatch.
The ecologist
Yannick Jadot
took another step this Wednesday towards the presidential election by launching a platform of ideas on the internet.
The leader of La France insoumise
Jean-Luc Mélenchon
has already left.
The socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo or the former Minister of the Economy Arnaud Montebourg are also preparing for it.
But for all, the deal is clear: for the moment, none of them is able to be present in the second round.
Yannick Jadot therefore called for the designation of a “
rally candidacy
” in “
the political space between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Emmanuel Macron
”.
But how to nominate this candidate?
For the MEP, organizing a primary is not the best idea.
He warns against "
the risk of the division which would prevent the large gathering."
The primaries should not become a losing machine.
"
In the Socialist Party, which has nevertheless organized primaries during the last three presidential elections, this method of appointment is no longer on the agenda.
“
In a primary, the candidates seek to express their singularity and not what they have in common with each other,
explained the national secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure to the press on January 28.
In the end you have people who become almost irreconcilable.
And as long as you have some who perjure themselves and it's absolute disaster!
He also pleads for a "
single candidate
" on the left and proposes the organization of a "
primary of ideas
".
"We will find the solution"
Gone are the days when primaries were praised as being able to revive democracy, re-legitimize parties in crisis, or restore the taste of politics to citizens.
The 2016 experience left its mark: in addition to the deep divisions that they highlighted, the primaries of the left and the right favored, according to Olivier Faure, the most “
radical
”
candidates
in their camp (Benoît Hamon among the socialists, François Fillon for the right), not those who are not best able to rally beyond their electoral base.
An argument contested by other personalities who put forward the previous primary of the left.
But then how to designate a single candidate without going through a primary?
This is the question no one has a precise answer to.
“
What I want is a process that gradually leads people to come together.
How are we going to proceed?
I don't know
”confessed the boss of the PS during his greetings to the press.
"
We will find a solution
" wants to believe on his side Yannick Jadot, one of whose relatives suggests a "
convention between the political parties
".
This indecision on the mode of designation makes some say that the organization of primaries will be inevitable on the left.
In the meantime, the EELV party still intends to organize its internal primary in September as confirmed by its national secretary Julien Bayou.
Yannick Jadot fears that it is a possible obstacle to the rally he calls for.
► See also: Presidential 2022 in France: the Socialists call for the unity of the left
"Natural candidate"
Since the election of Emmanuel Macron, the former government parties (PS and LR) have been in crisis and their absence of a leader is one of the symptoms.
While Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Marine Le Pen are undisputed heads of families, the question of the method of designation of the right-wing candidate for 2022 also arises.
Within the Republicans party, no personality is required.
However, no question for the president of the party Christian Jacob to go back through the primary box as in 2016: “
I have always been opposed to the primary,
he said on France Inter last year.
In general, when we import solutions from the left it rarely succeeds.
And then this system which consists in saying that we have to divide in order to better unite afterwards, we want to say: what if we unite right away!
"
In order to avoid a primary, the leadership of the Republicans is procrastinating and betting on the emergence of a providential "
natural candidate
".
Christian Jacob did not despair of seeing the mayor of Troyes
François Baroin
launching into the battle.
For their part, the president of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand or the president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse hope to get a head start by being re-elected in the regional elections in June and thus impose their application.
► To read also: Presidential 2022: LR more divided than ever on a primary
"The citizens want to weigh"
But others think that the right will necessarily have to organize new primaries: "
Given the number of suitors, it will become essential
" sighs a regional president.
A personality has made it his hobbyhorse: Bruno Retailleau.
“
What is the alternative?
wonders the boss of senators LR.
It is that a few hats with feathers choose their champion among themselves.
That is not democracy.
The citizens want to weigh.
For me, there is no risk of divisions, it is on the contrary the best conditions to allow us to unite around the one who will have crushed the match.
"
In order to guard against a too fierce battle, Bruno Retailleau, taking a conservative line, defends a single-round primary in which the voters would not vote for a candidate but would give their order of preference among all the contenders.
The head of the Senate Gérard Larcher proposes, for his part, a “
tiebreaker
” of the right-wing candidates not to say “primary”.
The word is no longer in fashion, but it is not certain that the right escapes it.
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