POPULAR PRIMARY. Christiane Taubira came first in the “popular primary”, Sunday, January 30. The former Keeper of the Seals called on the left-wing candidates to form “unity” while all denounced “one more candidacy”.
[Mis à jour le 31 janvier à 15h49] Far from the objective of the union, the popular primary led to the addition of a seventh candidacy on the left: that of Christiane Taubira. The former Keeper of the Seals is the personality who received the best appreciations with 79% of positive opinions ranging from “very good” to “fairly good”. Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon complete the podium when Anne Hidalgo is only fifth behind MEP Pierre Larrouturou. Christiane Taubira was the only one to promise a rally behind the winner of the primary, but since Sunday evening she has been calling on candidates to join her and support her candidacy, based on the votes of more than 392,000 people. “I will call Anne (Hidalgo), I will call Yannick (Jadot), I will call Fabien (Roussel) and I will call Jean-Luc (Mélenchon)”, declared just after her victory the new contender for the Elysée thinking form the union of the left.
Christiane Taubira won, this Sunday, the popular Primary, a citizen consultation intended to have a single candidacy on the left for the presidential election but whose legitimacy most of the main candidates refused to recognize. On average, Christine Taubira obtained the mention “much more”, ahead of the ecologist Yannick Jadot (fairly more), the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon (fairly less), the MEP Pierre Larrouturou (passable more) and the socialist Anne Hidalgo (passable plus).
“Thank you for your trust,” said Christiane Taubira, in front of her activists, after her victory in the Popular Primary. “We want a united left, we want a standing left, we have a beautiful road ahead of us, I am proud, I measure the weight of this confidence, we have no right to give up,” she added. . The former Keeper of the Seals has announced that he wants to call the other left-wing candidates to “unite”. “I will take the initiative to call the other candidates”, quoting the socialist, ecologist, rebellious and communist leaders. “I know their reluctance but I also know their intelligence and their sense of the general interest. We are building this union together,” she added.
Opposite, the enthusiasm is not there and some question the role of the citizens’ initiative. Only a few hours after the announcement of the election results, the Insoumis declared on France 5: “Christiane Taubira put on the shoe that had been prepared for her.” Before adding that he did not feel “not concerned” by the call for union. The ecologist Yannick Jadot was even more succinct on the TF1 JT set on Sunday evening: “It was a popular primary for Christiane Taubira, she won it. It’s one more candidacy, it’s exactly the reverse of what the popular primary wanted”. “One more candidacy” is also the argument opposed by Anne Hidalgo and Fabien Roussel. On January 31, the two candidates announced that they are continuing the presidential race individually. Among all the reactions, that of Anna Agueb-Porterie created the surprise. The candidate for the popular Primary finally decided to join the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon rather than that of the candidate designated by the primary: “I was a candidate for the popular primary because I always wanted the rally. But the result divides because it adds one more candidacy. I choose to support a program of ruptures capable of winning. The only one is the project carried by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.”
Now a candidate invested by the Popular Primary, Christiane Taubira must collect the 500 sponsorships necessary to validate her candidate. The former Minister of Justice did not leak any information on her progress in the quest for signatures but, despite the refusal of left-wing candidates to join her, she can count on the support of several elected officials from all left-wing political families like Benoît Payan, mayor of Marseille (PS).
To be able to participate in the vote during the popular Primary, it was necessary to fulfill three conditions: to be at least 16 years old, to be French and “to recognize oneself in the spirit of the common base” built by the organization of the vote. It was possible to register until Sunday 23 January. The list of participants is now closed, 467,000 people had the opportunity to participate in the ballot according to the figures provided by the organizers. At the close of the popular Primary vote, at 5 p.m., 392,738 registered voters participated, a rate of 84.1%, according to the organizers.
The paternity of a primary for a single candidate on the left does not go to Anne Hidalgo and her stillborn proposal for a “primary of the left” formulated at the beginning of December. In February 2021, the Popular Primary was launched with the objective of defining a “common base of ten measures of rupture with 13 political parties and inspired by the demands of the social movements of recent years”. The measures are then divided into three themes: an ecological republic, a social republic and a democratic republic.
The sponsorship system of the Popular Primary has therefore made it possible to define, in the end, seven personalities able, according to the voters, to carry the common base defined in the presidential election. Several prominent politicians have been named, while other lesser-known actors have also been included in the list of personalities to vote for (without necessarily being candidates). They are Anna-Agueb Pottery, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Pierre Larrouturou, Charlotte Marchandise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Christiane Taubira.