The Weekly Dispatch - 30 January 2022
The Weekly Dispatch - 30 January 2022
The far-right are engulfed in a civil war, Marion Maréchal Le Pen is defecting from Marine to Zemmour, the Popular Primary is finally here, but so is Francois Hollande.
The Weekly Dispatch is your weekly summary of the major events taking place in French politics, published on Sundays in order to give you the perfect way to catch up with French news and events.
Polling Update
While the moves over the past few weeks have seemed to be fairly undramatic and unstable, we have seen some interesting movements in polling since last week, movements that appear to be the start of a solidifying of the direction of travel of some candidates.
Emmanuel Macron continues to lead in the polls despite losing 1.5% since last week, currently sitting at 24% and maintaining a healthy 6% lead over Marine Le Pen, who has gained 0.5% and currently stands at 18%. While Valérie Pécresse has not moved from her position at 16.5%, the interesting thing is that we’re seeing a stagnation of her position that will begin to be concerning the candidate, particularly as Marine Le Pen begins to pull ahead.
Not only this, but Eric Zemmour, who has gained 1.5% in the last week and now sits at 13.5%, is slowly creeping up on her, and with the defections that continue to impact the Le Pen campaign, with a potentially huge defection which I discuss below, she could very quickly find herself in fourth place.
On the left, Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon has lost 0.5% and dropped below 10%; Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo has gained 0.5% and sits at 3.5%, and Yannick Jadot has dropped 0.5%, and Christiane Taubira is slowly creeping up being him, reaching 4% after gaining a percentage point.
With the movements we’re seeing, we can begin to draw a handful of conclusions at what is still an early stage of the election campaign, but we’re seeing a solidification of the positions of the left and the right, with the right lagging behind the more ‘cohesive’ right, and with the Centre currently sitting as the kingmaker of the political process, and the strongest coalition as it stands.
However, this could very well change if the popular primary happens and the left can decide on a cohesive candidate, with potential (and current maximum of) 22% of the total vote if every candidate on the left put aside their egos came together.
The Far-Right Engulfed By Civil War
With the recent defections that Marine Le Pen suffered towards the Zemmour camp, you would be forgiven for thinking that things could not get much worse for Le Pen and that she had already lived through the worst.
Unfortunately things are going from bad to worse.
Recently, a spate of news stories came through regarding her niece, the women we all expect to succeed her as the leader of the far-right, as Marion Maréchal Le Pen states that she was “thinking” of supporting Zemmour and that she “leans” towards him due to his “coherence, vision, and strategy”.
A big part of this, which took many by surprise, was the claim that a major reason for her thinking was that Zemmour was actively “fighting for the disappearance of the sanitary cordon between the so-called ‘republican’ right and [the far-right]”.
However, her actions are likely far more tactical than idealistic. With the ongoing defections towards the far-right upstarts, and the drop in support in Marine Le Pen compared to 2017, she may be hedging her bets for her eventual return, and may be hoping for a stronger position to run in the upcoming legislative elections.
Marion Maréchal herself has said that if she supports Zemmour, that “it's not just to pop a head and say hello”, and this will worry Marine greatly, who described what was happening as “brutal, violent” as if she cannot even count on the support of her family, and particularly a niece that she helped raise, then how could she count on the support of the French people?
The Popular Primary is Here
With 467,000 citizens expected to vote on who will lead the union of the left in the 2022 Presidential Election, you would be forgiven for feeling a certain level of surprise for not knowing that this decision was taking place this weekend.
However, the reason for this is that the ultimate result of the Popular Primary is still in the air.
With only stalwart Socialist Christian Taubira having promised to submit herself to the results of the primary, it is very likely that the entire event will devolve into a fiasco and cause more headaches than anything for a left that finds itself increasingly fractured and weakened by ongoing political developments.
With a a list of candidates that includes Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts), Anne Hidalgo (Socialist Party) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (La France insoumise), who all registered (despite themselves) while not necessarily planning to accept the results, there are several potential scenarios at play with the upcoming situations.
Firstly, Christiane Taubira, the current favourite, could be designated as the candidate and find herself tasked with unifying the left, and in some ways, she could potentially succeed depending on how polling supports her claims that a genuine chance of victory exists. With the goal of the popular primary being to reduce the number of candidates on the left, this would be the ideal result for them.
On the other hand, despite winning the primary, she could very well find herself trying to put leashes on the several candidates who decide to continue to ignore each other, and pretend that they are the only chance at victory for a left that can barely pierce the 10% polling mark.
This would, I’m sure you all know, be incredibly damaging for every candidate on the left, and sadly it remains the most likely scenario due to the political choices of candidates such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Yannick Jadot.
However, one other possibility popped up recently…
Return of the Former President
With things clearly not being complicated enough on the left, and everyone looking for a potential candidate who could rally the broken union and lead the charge towards a serious candidacy that could challenge Emmanuel Macron, we may soon find the left turning towards their former leader, and former president, Francois Hollande.
In a recent discussion with high-school students, he announced that, despite not currently being a candidate, “As things are not going well [in the country and on the left] … I will speak soon”, very quickly putting the French political sphere into a series of inquisitorial investigation as to whether he would run again.
Honestly stating that he had the “same ideas as before” and that he "continue[s] to defend them” he nontheless highlights that “a former president could very well go back to politics and…be a candidate for the presidential election”
With his entourage stating that there would be a speech in mid-February regarding this, and that the context was “serious enough” for him to “come out of his reserve”, but there also being announcements of a speech in March, it’s possible that he’s looking towards the upcoming Presidential Election in three months.
However, there could be a longer game at play here.
It may be seen as politically suicidal to dive into a divisive and divided political situation where there are many strong personalities attempting to drive the left in several directions, particularly Mélenchon and Jadot, who appear to refuse to work with anybody if they are not subordinate to them.
The smart strategy Hollande could be employing is to wait out the current election and see how a loss will impact the actors on the left.
Mélenchon is starting to near the end of his career, with talk of a successor of the far-left firebrand having taken place for the last few years, and Jadot may not be able to survive a crushing defeat following his declarations and recent behaviour, which would leave a gap for a strong personality, a strong political actor to come through and take the reigns, and maybe renew the old Union that made the socialists so powerful.
And while Hollande was severely damaged during his Presidency, to the point that he opted to not stand for re-election, he has plenty of time to repair the castle and to reposition himself, as well as to develop a platform that could challenge in 2027.