Primary or not, the “pride” of PS activists after Anne Hidalgo’s appeal – The HuffPost

POLITICS – It’s almost a relief. In Perpignan, where the Socialists hold their “first big campaign meeting”, Few activists do not support the latest initiative of their candidate Anne Hidalgo.

After the investiture in Lille, the tour de France of small towns, the mayor of Paris is taking advantage of this new meeting in the provinces this Sunday, December 12 in the Catalan capital to defend his unionist turnaround operated a few days earlier on the set of the TF1 newspaper. A call to rally, via a primary, launched to everyone’s surprise … the activists in the lead.

Never mind, for many of these supporters gathered at the Palais des Congrès it is indeed the only viable option four months before the election. “We cannot stay in this situation where all the left-wing parties are blind”, says for example Jean, a septuagenarian from Tarn. Like him, many have made the trip from the four corners of Occitania.

“Why wouldn’t we have morale?” Adds this man with the mustache provided – and mulled wine in his right hand – who wants to take example from the “craze” growing around Valérie Pécresse after her victory at the primary LR.

“It is normal in this context to see someone stand up and say ‘let’s unite’, continues the one who firmly believes in the victory of the mayor of Paris next spring. “Anne Hidalgo is the candidate for the outstretched hand against those who have a program of the outstretched finger”, he tells us with reference to the gesture by far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour during a visit to Marseilles, delighted to see the mayor of the capital “carrying the flag of the union”.

“Finally a voice rises to say out loud what the people of the left think softly”, adds Pierre while waiting, with his friend, for the organizers to open the doors of the Charles Trenet auditorium. Coming from Aveyron, the one who has been campaigning for the PS since 1988 says his “pride” in saluting the spirit of responsibility of his candidate against the rest of the left.

Hidalgo the brave

Same feelings on the side of the -rare- younger militants, much less numerous to have made the trip. “Do we actually have a choice?” Asks Marine, a young Perpignan, in her early thirties, heart to the left but not inset, when asked for her opinion on the late call from his candidate.

“She’s brave to speak out first,” adds Paul, sitting beside her in a form of nuance, after convincing her friend to attend what is her first campaign rally.

Courageous, Anne Hidalgo? This is the argument repeated by Olivier Faure just before the start of the speeches. “She is the candidate who has risen to the level of the general interest”, argued the First Secretary of the PS in HuffPost, sipping his red wine and taking pictures with the curious, in front of the Palais des Congrès.

How, then, does he explain the outright refusal of his adversaries? “Not everyone wants to take this collective risk … because indeed, participating in the primary means withdrawing in the event of defeat.” Among the militants, the words are even harsher vis-à-vis those who refuse to play the game of union. “Fools”, for some, the “ball of egos and devices”, for others. The relief might only be short-lived …