The PS? A “dead star”, for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “the Solar Temple”, for Yannick Jadot. The ecologists ? “Liars, hypocrites and false tokens” (Mélenchon always), who “have a problem with the Republic” (Anne Hidalgo). And the candidate of La France insoumise? Nothing less than an “adversary”, for the Communist Fabien Roussel. Among this anthology, some declarations are already a few months old, others a few weeks old. But all of them stress that the presidential campaign is at loggerheads on the left of the political spectrum, where no one seems to be able to see himself in painting. The failure of a rally is only the last sign.
However, each chapel assures it: in private, it discusses. It discusses between parties, it discusses between candidates or between teams of candidates. It discusses, we tell you. Publicly, however, we are far from a non-aggression pact between candidates who, if one or one of them wins, will necessarily have to come to terms with the others. A non-aggression pact that existed – for a while – in 2017, between Benoît Hamon, socialist candidate, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“The subject is not to save the PS”
“What has changed is that the PS candidate is not the same,” remarks rebellious deputy Eric Coquerel. It was easier to have a non-aggression pact with a candidate from the left wing of the PS than with Anne Hidalgo. We have a lot of big differences in substance with her. “Even if no party is spared, it is first and foremost the PS which is in the sights. The former hegemonic party now encysted under 5% is paying for years of arrogance, at least from the point of view of its “partners” on the left.
“The subject is not to save the PS”, moreover said very explicitly in December Yannick Jadot to rule out the idea of a primary on the left proposed by Anne Hidalgo. For Benjamin Lucas, spokesperson for the environmental candidate – who knows the Socialists well for having been one until 2018, before leaving for Génération s (the party of Benoît Hamon) – these little sentences are “not harsh words ”. “It is linked to the nature of the debate: we must finally talk about the issues that preoccupy the French. ”Implied: not the union of the left. Even so, for years, a good part of the left-wing electorate has been asking it, through polls, questions from listeners in the mornings or even interpellation on social networks.
Where is that annoyance?
On the ground, this annoyance of the voters of the left, our two interlocutors do not feel it: “No, nobody reproaches us anything. You know, people don’t want to relive the Holland years, ”says Eric Coquerel. Serenity also at Benjamin Lucas: “Our activists know why they are fighting, our offer is coherent and readable. It is perhaps less true for the socialists… ”
At the PS, some officials readily admit a lack of readability. But they regret that the debate is always reduced to the slogan “Never again the PS”. “In my department, I managed to get everyone around the table. Even with the rebels, locally, I can discuss, tells a local part of the party with the rose passed by the ministries under Holland. But as long as Mélenchon is there, nothing will be possible. This guy wants to pay too much the PS! This framework even goes so far as to wonder if Mélenchon and Jadot will not end up joining forces to definitively bury the socialist candidacy. Another, parliamentary collaborator, is more prosaic: “They have a nice game to say that they no longer want the PS. But in the legislative elections, without a rally of the left, there are not many rebellious deputies who will be re-elected. “
The union is for after
With, perhaps, this idea in mind, Benjamin Lucas hastens to specify that he has, basically, “no difficulties with the other left parties”. On Sunday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon even announced that if, on April 10, he qualified for the second round of the presidential election, he would start discussions with the rest of the left to form a government. Even with the PS? “There will be no limits, we will see what happens, announces Eric Coquerel. But if we are in the second round, that will mean that it will be done on the basis of our program. Here are the Socialists – qualified by the same Mélenchon of “baggage accompanied” by LREM from the next day – warned.
Not sure that this re-mobilizes voters of the left that the polls announce discouraged. Perhaps a little too accustomed to this refrain of the union that we always announce for later, according to the conveniences and the calendar specific to each party. After the Europeans, after the regional ones… now after April 10, 2022. Soon after the presidential defeat?