AThen the left has seen candidates for the presidential election multiply in recent months, there was almost one more on the starting line in the race for the Élysée. And not least. As reported The worldFrançois Hollande seriously considered running for re-election in 2022, he who had refused to run for a second term in 2017. When Anne Hidalgo’s campaign was already struggling to take off, in December 2021, the former head of state took the temperature with his closest advisers, including the former deputy Julien Dray and the expert in strategy and political communication Christian Michel to find out if his desires could be of real interest to the French.
A two-month race against the clock is then launched and potential supporters are not lacking. Members of the left wing of La République en Marche, environmentalists who are thirsty for victory or even those who believe that Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not represent a useful vote… Many are those who welcome a return to the foreground by François Hollande. Two teams are then formed and set up a social democratic program made up of multiple proposals.
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“In twenty-four hours, we could launch a campaign. Behind the scenes, we had around thirty enthusiastic experts, proud of François Hollande’s results in 2017 and who wanted to pursue him: redistribution, emancipation, but also controlled deficits, falling unemployment… They were just waiting for one thing: that he presses the button”, confides the senior official Maxime Boutron to our colleagues.
“I don’t want to go against Hidalgo or against my party”
At the end of December, everything began to accelerate and the reflection of an announcement of candidacy and its modalities intensified when Anne Hidalgo fell below the 5% mark in the polls. “The polls that fall every day… It will turn to torture”, sums up the former head of state in private.
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But François Hollande makes it a point of honor not to accelerate the fall of the socialist candidate. The will of the mayor of Paris not to let go and not to withdraw sows doubt and will sound the death knell for the potential candidacy of the former tenant of the Élysée. “I don’t want to go against Hidalgo or against my party,” he told his troops.
In February, Anne Hidalgo manages to obtain her 500 sponsorships and therefore puts an end to a return to the political scene of François Hollande in 2022. “By taking an incredible time to decide, he locked himself in”, deeply regrets Julian Dray. “It was a bewitching adventure, a life-size exercise that will be used for the next shot,” predicts Karim Ziabat for his part. With 2027 in sight?
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