David Desgouilles is a member of the editorial staff of Causeur. He has published
Dérapage
(éd.
Du
Rocher, 2017).
His latest novel,
Their Lost Wars
, has just been published by Editions du Rocher.
FIGAROVOX. - Anne Hidalgo could be a candidate in 2022. Would she be the most legitimate to represent the left?
In the sense that the voters of the left are overwhelmingly located in the large metropolises, which are moreover led by coalitions including the PS and EELV, and that Anne Hidalgo is at the head of the first of them, the mayor of Paris can indeed feel legitimate to represent the left.
The problem is that if Anne Hidalgo is representative of this metropolitan left, that is not enough to be elected President of the Republic.
On the one hand, because peripheral France has a large majority in the electorate which usually mobilizes in the presidential election, and on the other hand because Emmanuel Macron competes with the left on the same ground of metropolises.
If Anne Hidalgo seems to have the favors of the PS and not to have a real competitor in her party, the same is not the case for Yannick Jadot.
David Desgouilles
Yannick Jadot said he wanted to
"build a French ecology team"
.
Is this the subject on which the left must focus its campaign?
Yannick Jadot is indeed Anne Hidalgo's most serious competitor for this left-wing PS-EELV candidacy, well represented in metropolitan areas.
And indeed, the latter has made ecology its ideological backbone.
Climate issues, atmospheric pollution, the role of the car are at the top of the concerns of this metropolitan left.
But if Anne Hidalgo seems to have the favors of the PS and not to have a real competitor in her party, it is not the same for Yannick Jadot. Yet the latter had achieved a good performance in the last European elections, much better than that of the PS. He was therefore one step ahead of Anne Hidalgo. But this time ahead was spoiled by two events. First, the environmental mayors who were elected last year in the wake of Yannick Jadot's score, created a number of controversies which he suffered the consequences by ricochets in the opinion. Second, he finally announced this week that he would participate in the environmentalists competition where he will face Sandrine Rousseau and Éric Piolle. When we know the history of the internal elections of the Greens, we can onlybe pessimistic for whoever is presented as the most capable of achieving a good score. Environmental activists preferred Eva Joly to Nicolas Hulot in 2012. We remember that they had appointed Alain Lipietz in 2002 before disconnecting him, which happened to Yannick Jadot in 2017. In addition, the two candidates he faces in this primary are closer to the Bayou line which leads the party. Yannick Jadot should probably have freed himself from this competition and went to the people, directly, like Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon five years ago.what happened to Yannick Jadot in 2017. In addition, the two candidates he faces in this primary are closer to the Bayou line which leads the party. Yannick Jadot should probably have freed himself from this competition and went to the people, directly, like Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon five years ago.what happened to Yannick Jadot in 2017. In addition, the two candidates he faces in this primary are closer to the Bayou line which leads the party. Yannick Jadot should probably have freed himself from this competition and went to the people, directly, like Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon five years ago.
Many candidates have already declared themselves for the presidential race, rebellious France, the PS and EELV. Do we need a primary to elect the best possible candidate to represent the left?
I will never defend this system of primaries, in my opinion antithetical to the spirit of the Fifth Republic of the 1962 reform, desired by General de Gaulle. Let’s also take stock of the system. In 2012, the elected president had indeed gone through a primary, which was played out like a congress of the PS, where François Hollande, returned to grace after the misadventures of DSK in New York, was elected on a program renegotiating the so-called “Merkozy” treaty and fighting “his enemy finance”, commitments that he cheerfully trampled upon as soon as he was elected. The famous rebels, who spoiled his mandate, were born from this renunciation of a program that he had made less European to attract the rallying of Arnaud Montebourg in the second round of the primary. In 2017, the primary system resulted in two candidates,one on the left making 6%, that is to say not much more than the participants in the primary on the left, and the other on the right who did not reach the second round either. Aggravating circumstance, the primary had so legitimized François Fillon that it was impossible to disconnect him at the time of his indictment.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants the union of the left, provided it is done behind him, which neither the PS nor EELV will do, of course.
David Desgouilles
Can they all come together around a single figure?
I do not think so. Of course, they have succeeded in Île-de-France at the regional level. But Clémentine Autain posed fewer problems for the PS and EELV than Jean-Luc Mélenchon because she has always contested the strategy (however profitable from an electoral point of view), which the leader of France Insoumise had adopted for the 2017 presidential election. , it has certainly moved away from the populist line and moved closer to that advocated by Clémentine Autain, which resulted in the designation of Manon Aubry as head of the European list with the success that we know. But not to the point of giving up his candidacy in favor of Anne Hidalgo or an environmentalist. Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants the union of the left, provided it is done behind him, which neither the PS nor EELV will do, of course.
Let us return to the alliance in Île-de-France which seems to be a reason for satisfaction and hope for Anne Hidalgo who supported it.
This merged list has not only been beaten by more than ten points by Valérie Pécresse, but the campaign has shown that such a broad alliance allows the right to return to the left the old accusation made to it in the event of agreements. electoral with the FN.
Instead of “fascism” we are mobilizing the “Islamogauchism” of LFI and certain Greens.
In Occitania, Carole Delga refused to unite with La France Insoumise "in the name of republican values" and she was also the best elected regional president in France.
It therefore seems unlikely that the idea of the sole candidate of the left will go beyond fantasy.
