The bleak situation of the French left ahead of next April’s presidential election was exemplified perfectly in calls made recently by Arnaud Montebourg, a former Socialist government minister whose campaign for president barely made it into opinion polls.
Montebourg has posted several videos on Twitter in which he calls four other left-wing candidates, all of whom have been doing as poorly as his in the polls. It was a clumsy, last-minute effort to urge Socialists, Greens, Communists and other leftists to unite in support of a single presidential ticket, lest they be crushed by the right and far right in April.
Nobody answered.
With elections approaching, the left — once a powerful force in French politics — is in tatters. Many of its best-known voices seem unable to bet on what, for analysts and their followers, offers the only possible path to victory: unity.
In a country that has been moving to the right, the left finds itself without a voice on issues such as security, immigration and national identity. And she has failed to capitalize on the wave of protests for the environment and social justice, which should have opened up opportunities for her to rally support.
“The left finds itself in a situation of unprecedented ideological fragility,” commented Rémi Lefebvre, professor of political science at the University of Lille. “In this context, being divided is suicide.”
Amidst the chaos and inaction, there is now an effort to seek order.
Bypassing traditional party tactics, the so-called “People’s Primary,” a growing effort led by a left-wing group that is fed up with sectarianism and the fragmentation of political parties, will hold a January vote for its supporters to pick a single candidate, before it the French electorate as a whole go to the polls.
Current polls point to the reason why some elements on the left are looking for another way. Seven left-wing candidates are running for president at the moment, and none of them has 10% of voting intentions.
Together, these candidates represent about a quarter of the votes, that is, 20 points less than the French left had a decade ago. The chance of any candidate from a unified left receiving enough votes to reach the second round of the election — in which he would likely face current president Emmanuel Macron — seems slim.
But the effort to hold a primary in January offers hope for a path for the left to regain its relevance. And it has the potential to further stir up a presidential campaign that has already been disrupted by the entry into the race for the polarizing figure of far-right writer and television celebrity Eric Zemmour.
The French left was dominated for years by the Socialist Party and its Social Democratic politics, but Macron’s victory in the 2017 presidential election signaled the end of the two-party system in which the Socialists had a secure position.
Today the left is a confused mix, divided mainly between the Socialists, the Greens and the far-left party, Unsubmissive France—not to mention the constellation of small far-left parties out of the near-collapse of the Communist Party.
Primary campaign leaders began working on the proposal in January. They spent months negotiating with most of these associations to come up with a common platform of ten social and climate justice proposals, including raising taxes on the wealthy and ending pesticide use by 2030.
More than 300,000 people have already joined the initiative — the equivalent of 40% of all affiliated to left-wing parties in France. They will vote in January to choose a common candidate and have promised to campaign for that candidate.
But it will be a long road.
Samuel Grzybowski, a spokesman for the People’s Primary, said his team had been pressured by established parties to end the process. Some parties would have even offered to help them win seats in parliament if they walked away from the presidential race.
“It’s been a long ‘Baron Noir,'” he said, alluding to a hit TV series that portrays the dark side of French political life — a sort of French version of “House of Cards.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of Unsubmissive France, described calls for unity as belated and “pathetic.” Gradually, however, the tide began to turn.
Montebourg’s desperate calls drew attention, and then Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist Party presidential candidate who saw her support base drop to less than 5%, acknowledged that the left was heading for disaster.
“This fragmented left, this left that today drives many of our cocidians to despair, needs to regroup,” she said in France’s most watched TV newspaper. “We need to organize a primary.”
A public letter followed urging the parties to agree to the primary’s proposal. Similar calls had already been launched by members of several other parties.
The movement gained further impetus when Christiane Taubira — the charismatic former justice minister under François Hollande, France’s socialist president between 2012 and 2017 — announced that she was considering running for president and would invest all her strength “in last chances of unity”. The next day she said that the primary effort “looks like the last space in which it will be possible to build this unit.”
Taubira’s move will likely increase pressure on candidates who have not yet joined the left primary, such as green candidate Yannick Jadot. Minutes after Taubira’s announcement, Sandrine Rousseau, leader of the Greens who is also campaigning for Jadot, said that “a coalition of the left” is needed.
“The balance of power has just tipped in our favor,” said Grzybowski.
The call for a citizens’ primary mirrors the growing disenchantment with traditional left-wing parties. Many people on the left today consider the parties’ policies of social justice and equitable economy to be outdated. Some still view François Hollande’s business-friendly economic policy as a betrayal.
“It’s no longer the political parties that drive public debate,” said Hugo Viel, 23, an engineering graduate and a volunteer at the People’s Primary.
“It’s the social movements, the climate marches, the #MeToo movement, the yellow vests,” he said, citing many protests that have rocked the country recently and that address issues such as economic inequality, racism and domestic violence.
But left-wing political parties have difficulty translating these protests into concrete proposals and greater support. They are out of contact with these social movements, have had difficulty in expanding their presence outside the big cities, and have plunged into bitter internal disputes, with clashes between competing strands of feminism and anti-racism from different generations.
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