Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo won 1.7% of the vote in the first round of the 2022 presidential election. Her team and her activists want an in-depth overhaul of the party in order to be able to unite again.
A small bar with hundreds of journalists. A few activists scattered in the crowd who dare not say their names. The latter do not hide their disillusionment: “I am very stressed and worried […] we are in the after, we will not hide it, confides Anthony, 36 years old and militant at the PS, a few minutes before the announcement of the results. “You can imagine that there wouldn’t be many of us!”, laughs Nathan, another young activist. But the good-natured smile is quickly replaced by tears.
The announcement of the results had been apprehended for a few months, it is now done. With 1.7% of the vote in the first round for Anne Hidalgo, some activists feel a form of heartbreak: “I am sad […] I didn’t think we would do so little…Now we have to rebuild everything”, underlines Nathan, moved. The socialist candidate assumes her failure from 8:01 p.m.: “We will draw all the balance sheets” from this defeat, adding that “abstention testifies to a divided France”. She does not forget the traditional republican front, calling for Emmanuel Macron to vote “against the far right” in the second round.
Read also: Voting with the wallet and useful voting… Lessons from the first round
See as well : Macron in the lead, Le Pen qualified, the official results map
The objective: renewing itself for the legislative elections
Activists, stunned by their party’s worst score in the presidential elections, remain grateful to their candidate. “There is no responsibility on the part of Anne Hidalgo” insists Hugo, a student activist for 6 years in the Socialist Party. Others point to a failure of political strategy: “It is not Anne Hidalgo’s talent that is in question, it is a question of political space”, explains David Assouline, senator from Paris, who made part of Anne Hidalgo’s team. All unambiguously validate the vote against the far right: “We must save the Republic!” says Carole Delga, President of the Occitanie Regional Council and supporter of Anne Hidalgo, ready to vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round.
Read also: Anne Hidalgo calls to vote for Emmanuel Macron
Supporters of the Socialist Party hope for a change of strategy for the legislative elections. “You have to give hope and sell something serious,” explains Anthony, an activist. Some PS executives want an opening to the left, like the president of the Socialist group in the Senate Patrick Kanner. He advocates a gathering of the left, including the Communist Party, the ecologists and the Radical Left Party: “Everyone has their place, but only the PS has brought the left to power!”, adding that “reconstruction must be a rapid process that passes, for example, through the creation of general states of socialism.”
“The PS is haunted by its latest government experience”
Faced with this historically catastrophic score, many supporters of the PS have expressed their dissatisfaction. In the line of sight: the media and the polls. “You have to vote for ideas, not for numbers!” chants Salomé, a young activist from the Socialist Party. “The media have been relentless,” adds Nathan, who is campaigning to “learn lessons without forgetting”.
Within the party, things seem more complex. Following the affair of the dinner without Olivier Faure, executives blame certain leaders of the Socialist Party, in particular François Hollande: “The PS is haunted by its last government experience […] If the left has not been able to unite, it is because it did not wear the colors of the left in 2012” criticizes Stéphane Troussel, president of the Departmental Council of Seine-Saint-Denis and support from Anne Hidalgo. Same observation for the senator David Assouline, who militates for a better representativeness of the elected representatives of the PS: Why is it Stéphane Le Foll who is present on TV? For 6 months he didn’t say a word! The new figures on the left must be at the forefront of reconstruction!”
Others seem more humble and express certain reservations: “We must all take our share of responsibility […] this dinner is a media frenzy” estimates Pierre Jouvet, spokesperson for Anne Hidalgo. However, despite the defeat, some activists remain optimistic: “Everyone needs to sit around the table and reflect, political parties and civil society, to see what we can offer the French,” says Hugo, who calls for “changing projects before changing heads.”