Presidential 2022 in France: towards a popular primary for the left?
Audio 01:16
Wars of egos and ideas, elected refugees at Emmanuel Macron's, polls at half mast: the French left is not very fit with the approach of the presidential election.
(Photo: Olivier Faure, first secretary of the French Socialist Party (PS), delivers a speech during the Socialist Party's Summer Universities, August 29, 2020, in Blois.) AFP - GUILLAUME SOUVANT
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
It is a litany which is hummed around the French left in the run-up to the presidential election.
What if a union candidate emerged to try to thwart the forecasts and avoid a new duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen?
Discussions between parties have so far not led to much.
Civil society actors have therefore decided to take the initiative by organizing a primary outside the control of political groups.
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Wars of egos and ideas, elected refugees at Emmanuel Macron's, polls at half mast: the French left is not very fit with the approach of the presidential election.
But no question of giving up for a handful of committed young people.
For them, there is a solution: the common candidacy and an organization to achieve this called the popular primary.
"
Union is a notion that seems impossible to us in politics because the personalities do not get along, the parties either,"
explains Yanis Khames, education assistant in Seine-Saint-Denis.
But the problem today is that in order to represent social and ecological values, union is necessary.
So, if they don't succeed, we will.
"
A bad memory for the socialists
Objective: to get two million French people to vote in the fall to designate the one likely to best carry the hopes of the people of the left. Problem,
rebellious France
already has its candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Europe Ecology The Greens must organize its own primary and the Socialists have bad memories of their experience in this area.
Not enough to discourage Mathilde Imer, former member of the Citizen's Climate Convention: “
What we are trying to do is create popular momentum without being completely crazy to believe that all alone, without political parties, it will be fine. walk.
But on the other hand, we are also aware that political parties, without popular momentum, will not succeed.
Yes, it will be hard, but we are convinced today that this is what people expect.
"
Popular pressure to defeat device disputes.
The initiative has so far not elicited public reactions from left-wing parties.
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Presidential France 2022