The trouble for the French left is threefold. First, too many candidates have fragmented the vote. None seems to have the clout or the charisma needed to rally the others behind a single nominee. Ms Hidalgo had backed the idea of a “citizens’ primary” as a way to do this. Due to take place on January 27th-30th, this is a non-binding online vote proposed by 130,000 grass-roots supporters as a way to measure support for the different candidates, whether they like it or not. But Mr Jadot argues, reasonably enough, that he has already won his own party’s primary, and has no intention of heeding the result. Mr Mélenchon says all this is not his problem.
Second, the mainstream French left has lost the working class. Its base is now made up largely of city-dwellers and public-sector employees. This is too narrow to win national elections easily. In the past, Mitterrand deftly linked the Socialists to the French Communist Party to secure the blue-collar vote. Now the biggest slice of that vote goes to the nationalist Marine Le Pen: 33% of blue-collar workers back her for president, next to 3% for Ms Hidalgo. Such voters want a harder line on law and order. Cycling, one of Ms Hidalgo’s signature issues, may be popular in central Paris and Green-run cities such as Bordeaux. Elsewhere, voters depend on their cars and resent being made to feel guilty for it.
Third, France has shifted to the right. Today 37% of voters say they are on the right, up four points since 2017, next to 20% who say they are on the left, down five points in the same period. As a former economy minister in a Socialist government, Emmanuel Macron in 2017 drew from the moderate left to build his new centrist party when he ran for the presidency. Many such voters were subsequently disillusioned by his tax cuts for the rich, but since the pandemic they have grown less hostile, says Chloé Morin, a former Socialist adviser now at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a think-tank: “The weakness of the left means that voters on the centre-left are thinking that they might as well vote Macron to keep out the right and the far right.”
“I’m not giving up,” insists Ms Hidalgo, who argues that polls understate support on the left. She blames Mr Macron for de stabilising the party system. But some even within the Socialist Party think that the solution to their troubles lies with yet another potential candidate: Christiane Taubira, a popular former justice minister from French Guiana who is something of an icon on the left. She says she will run for the presidency if she wins the “citizens’ primary”. Unless some of the others then step aside, however, Ms Taubira’s candidacy will only fragment the vote further.
