Initiated nearly a year ago, the unprecedented citizen consultation process had aroused the interest of more than 392,000 left-wing voters at the end of January to nominate the candidate most likely to unite.

But their choice to support Christiane Taubira, who largely came out on top in the consultation, did not prevent the latter from throwing in the towel last Wednesday, credited with only 2% in the polls and for lack of sufficient elected sponsorship to validate her candidacy.

Noting "the failure", the board of directors of the popular primary finally announced on Saturday "to support and campaign" for the "Popular Union" of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who had however violently rejected this citizens' initiative.

A decision which aroused the incomprehension of some of the voters in the primary who, on social networks, cried treason, being surprised that the choice did not fall on the ecologist Yannick Jadot, who arrived in second place in the January consultation ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon but behind him in the polls.

LFI candidate for the French presidential election Jean-Luc Mélenchon at an electoral meeting in Saint-Denis de la Réunion, February 26, 2022 Christophe ARCHAMBAULT AFP / Archives

"The popular primary has become a gag," quipped Yannick Jadot on Saturday.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon had previously assured that he wanted "nothing to do with these people" and that he would not include their expenses in his campaign costs.

One of the founders and spokesperson, Mathilde Imer, left the movement in the process, explaining that the decision of the board of directors did not seem to her "not in coherence with what we have built in recent months and even less embody a different way of doing politics".

"Flurred"

Tuesday, in a column published in JDD.fr, 29 supporters of this movement, including sociologist Dominique Meda and director and activist Cyril Dion, also indicated that they were dissociating themselves.

"What aroused our enthusiasm and our support was not only the utilitarian promise of a more effective, disruptive tool for the conquest of power, it was also the commitment to promote another way of doing politics", they write.

"But it is clear that recent developments in the popular Primary have taken it far away from the original goals of this fine initiative", they regret.

The board of directors of the Popular Primary, bringing together "volunteers, local groups, members of the permanent team and the office" explains that it has chosen to support the Popular Union "in a logic of useful voting".

They tried Monday evening to explain their choice, during a vision conference.

"We went too quickly in communication, without explaining all the ins and outs," admitted the communication manager.

In the exchanges, the criticisms were numerous: "You deceived the 400,000 voters", "a beautiful initiative sadly scuttled. I am appalled, without violence but with sadness".

"Are you going to refund donations for people who feel cheated?"

"Mélenchon did not agree to participate in the Pop Primary: how do you think of crossing the + sound barrier + with a candidate who does not recognize your legitimacy?" Asked other voters.

The popular Primary was only a "stage" of a larger process whose "objective was not the rally, but the victory of the left and ecology", argued Victor Grezes, director of the political pole.

He mentioned "three options": "Either we see the failure of the rally and that's it", "or we take the 2nd choice of the vote in the popular primary, that is to say Jadot, but it's was a vote to unite and the context is no longer the same, it is no longer the same sequence".

The environmental candidate for the French presidential Yannick Jadot in Paris, March 5, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP / Archives

For him, "the ideal would have been to redo a vote, but we had neither the time nor the means", he admitted.

"The 3rd option was to take responsibility. We call for a useful vote, because that's the goal, to win the left," he insisted.

© 2022 AFP