In the 2017 presidential election, the French Socialist Party (PS) was on the brink of collapse. Five years later it has fallen to the bottom and few believe it will ever emerge from there in its original form. The disastrous result in the elections this Sunday for the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo, who received 1.7% of the votes with 97% of the votes counted, confirms the progressive decline of a formation that occupied the Elysée five years ago with François Hollande and that he was now unable even to overrule minor candidates like communist Fabien Roussel or countryman Jean Lassalle.
“I know how disappointed you are tonight, and together we will take all the practical consequences,” Hidalgo promised to the dozens of militants who descended on the small restaurant in south-east Paris chosen by the PS to follow the election results – a first sign Great results were not to be expected. A look of disappointment swept the small room, falling silent at the magnitude of the defeat. He only woke from the daze when Hidalgo quickly appeared to acknowledge some dismal results which he assured would not make him resign. “We never lower our arms, I never lower my arms,” he promised to applause, yes, rather embarrassed.
In the area of the traditional right, which alternated with the socialists in power until five years ago, the mood was not much livelier. The Republican candidate (LR), Valérie Pécresse, who thought she could defeat Emmanuel Macron, did not achieve any of her goals: with 4.7% of the votes, she did not make it through to the second round, nor did Fewer Votes beat the Ultra -Candidate Éric Zemmour (7.05%). He doesn’t even get the 5% his party needs to cover campaign costs. The candidate who proclaimed “the right is back” when she was elected in the internal primaries must now avoid bleeding from militants and voters – both towards Makronismo and towards the hardest right, from where Zemmour has not stopped To woo prominent members of LR – this leads to a bleeding process, as it is already going through the PS, which according to the French press signed its “death certificate” on Sunday evening.
“This result is of course a personal and collective disappointment. I take my full share of the responsibility for this defeat,” Pécresse told his militants.
Valérie Pécresse, in Paris this Sunday evening.ALAIN JOCARD (AFP)
This Sunday’s results confirm a worrying track record for the right, which has ruled for more years than any other formation in the Fifth Republic. After the defeat of the re-election-seeking Nicolas Sarkozy by the socialist François Hollande in 2012, five years later the apparent favorite for the Elysée, the conservative François Fillon, did not even manage to qualify for the second round.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe to
An unprecedented catastrophe
Until then an unprecedented disaster, but now it has worsened, as happened in the socialist house. With the aggravating fact that the Republicans now have to fight on two fronts: On the one hand, the macronism with the mantra “neither left nor right” could attract the moderate wing of the party even more. He did it back in 2017, when he managed to recruit into his ranks heavyweights like Bruno Le Maire, a candidate for the Conservative primary, but who has ended up as economy minister throughout Macron’s first term and today a staunch Macronist, like the current interior minister and former LR member Gérald Darmanin. Sarkozy, who remains a Conservative figurehead, has remained thunderously silent despite Pécresse’s attempts to enlist his explicit support.
But even the traditional right is now struggling to prevent a hemorrhage from its more conservative flank. Although his defeat may also limit his appeal, Zemmour has not hesitated to publicly state his intention to cannibalize Pécresse’s party to form what he calls the new French right. An appeal that could seduce party heavyweights like Éric Ciotti, who challenged Pécresse for the Republican nomination and, already during this internal campaign, openly advocated moving closer to Zemmour’s postulates. On election night, Ciotti distanced himself from Pécresse and refused to provide a campaign slogan for the second round, while the candidate said she would vote for Macron.
While the right is digesting the feared blow, but harder than expected, the socialist left, which the polls have already predicted the disastrous outcome, assures that it will get to work quickly to rebuild the party and the divided French left.
“We will be there, the Republican and European, social and environmentally conscious left, the real left that has always enabled social progress in our country,” Hidalgo said. “We will rebuild it, strong, creative, popular, open to unions, to the social movement and to the generosity of everyone involved,” promised the unsuccessful candidate between “Au boulot! Au boulot!’ (Let’s work!) by some militants and leaders who now see the general election as the last chance to prevent the entire House of the Left from collapsing and being left without a vote for another five years.
The homework book also says what to do with a party that looks exhausted in its current form. Sunday’s “historic defeat” means that “the PS is closing a page in its history,” said the party’s first secretary, Olivier Faure. For the mayor of Nantes and one of Hidalgo’s campaign spokesmen, Mathieu Klein, talking about a new stage is not taboo. “It is obvious that a profound re-establishment will be necessary. Our political history has already seen several episodes,” he told EL PAÍS. “The socialist ideal is still very much alive, but it needs a new political organization that knows how to serve society. The PS in its current form needs to be transformed.”
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.