With 1.7% of the vote, the mayor of Paris achieves the worst score in the history of her party in the presidential election, more than four points below the stinging defeat of 2017. A logical failure after a campaign that did not never took off.
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Defeat was expected. Anne Hidalgo, who won only 1.7% of the vote, according to an Ipsos-Sopra Steria estimate for France Télévisions*, failed in the first round of thepresidential election 2022. With this score, the Socialist Party (PS) falls even lower than during the already resounding defeat of 2017, where Benoît Hamon won 6.36% of the vote. For the mayor of Paris, it is the end of a long and painful campaign that never took.
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Over the past few months, Anne Hidalgo has failed to build momentum around her vision of a “social-democratic and ecological left”. As soon as she entered the race for the Elysée, in September 2021, she gave the image of a candidate pushed by her camp to run, when she had hammered during the municipal elections, in June 2020, not to be interested. by the presidency. Little known to the general public outside the capital, the socialist was only credited from 7% to 9% in voting intentions.
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The candidate is betting on a first strong proposal to impress voters: double teachers’ salaries. “What she thought was like a signal addressed to the heart of the electorate on the left was very badly received”analyzes Frédéric Sawicki, professor of political science and specialist in the PS. The measure, considered unrealistic and demagogic by its detractorsis remodeled. His program finally plans to wear “gradually” their remuneration “at the level of executives”.
Anne Hidalgo is also campaigning on the rise of 15% of the minimum wage, the creation of a “housing shield” and a “isolidarity tax on climate wealth and biodiversity”. But none of these ideas manages to propel her as the best-placed candidate on the left.
“Many of his proposals are very close to what we find among other left-wing candidates.”
Frédéric Sawicki, political scientist specializing in the PSat franceinfo
While her campaign is slipping, she tries, on December 8, to play the card of “gathering” and proposes a primary from the left. “Let the candidates who want to govern together come and participate in this primary”she says on the set of TF1’s “20 Hours”.
The idea was immediately swept away by the Communists and La France insoumise. “The socialist candidate recognizes the inability of the PS to be a driving force”, tance for his part the national secretary of the Greens, Julien Bayou. Even within the Socialist Party, his appeal is not unanimous. Former President Francois Hollande judge qu’“a union candidacy only makes sense if all the candidates share the same proposals. But we know that this is not the case”.
At the beginning of January, Anne Hidalgo distances herself from the Popular Primary, a citizen consultation that she had nevertheless supported at the start. Faced with the refusal of Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon to recognize any legitimacy in this vote, the elected representative of Paris announces that she will maintain her presidential candidacy regardless of the result.
“Her about-face on the primary shows that she had no clear strategy.”
Frédéric Sawickiat franceinfo
The nearly 400,000 participants in the ballot designate on January 30 Christiane Taubira, who will throw in the towel at the beginning of March, for lack of sufficient sponsorship. Anne Hidalgo finishes fifth out of seven candidates, behind Yannick Jadot (2nd), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (3rd) and economist Pierre Larrouturou (4th). After this failure, the socialist candidate is at rock bottom. It is “an additional blow to the morale of the teams”, recognizes his surroundings.
In public, the candidate officially enjoys the support of her party. But behind the scenes, his relations with the leadership of the PS have been stretched over a campaign that many socialists have judged “inaudible”. “If she had started her campaign at 2% in the polls, we could have said that she struggled to exist. There, she starts at 10% and ends at 2%”, creaked a party cadre at the end of March.
Among the Socialists, the defeat had been recorded for long weeks. Traveling to Brest (Finistère), three days before the first round, Olivier Faure wants to be “lucid”. “I’m going to be sincere with you. I agree: she’s not going to win”, loose the first secretary of the PS in front of voters. Asked by a franceinfo listener on April 4, Anne Hidalgo herself concedes that she will return“occupy Paris” the day after the first round.
“We will draw up all the balance sheets together objectively, but you know that we never give up, that I never give up”reacted Sunday evening the socialist candidate from her campaign headquarters.
️ “I know how disappointed you are this evening and we will of course draw up all the balance sheets together objectively”, says Anne Hidalgo
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Lhe PS already has its eyes riveted on the next battle: the legislative elections. Anne Hidalgo invited to a dinner on April 6 several tenorsincluding François Hollande, the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, and the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga. An appointment to discuss “the conditions of the gathering” from the left in June, while “negotiations are underway with the Greens and the Communists”, according to the boss of the PS senators, Patrick Kanner, organizer of the dinner. Sign of unease within the party: Olivier Faure was not invited.
Legislation must also be “a rebuilding tool” for the socialists, believes the senator from the North. But what place can the PS, more than ever weakened, occupy in the political field? Since 2017, “the general line that has been drawn is to transform the PS into a social-ecologist party”decrypts Frédéric Sawicki. “But it comes up against strategic differences, between those who think that it is necessary to get closer to the center-left, and those who consider that it is necessary to break with the social-liberal heritage”continues the political scientist.
“We need to reflect, to continue the change.”
A PS executiveat franceinfo
The party will also have to face its financial difficulties, which the failure of Anne Hidalgo in the presidential election will not fix.. Due to his score below 5%, only some 800,000 euros in campaign costs will be reimbursed. Since 2019, the party has lost 5 million euros, before a deficit of 3.7 million euros in 2020. At the start of 2021, the PS was forced to lay off 12 employeesor about a quarter of the permanent workforce.
Finally, it remains to be seen who will be able to embody the restructuring of the party. Internally, Olivier Faure is criticized. Could François Hollande take over the reins of the PS? “It’s already tomorrow that we have to look. I will take my full part in it. I will not give up anything that I myself have carried”he launched on March 22, during a meeting of Anne Hidalgo in Limoges (Haute-Vienne). The former head of state promised a “initiative” after the presidential election.
* Ipsos-Sopra Steria estimate for France Télévisions, Radio France, France24/RFI/MCD, Public Senate/LCP National Assembly and Le Parisien-Today in France.