Presidential 2022: here are the seven left-wing candidates for the popular Primary

The popular Primary follows its course, in spite of the tension and the hesitations of certain parties on the left. This Saturday, the names of the candidates who will be put to the vote, scheduled for January 27 to 30, have been announced. It is therefore Anna Agueb-Porterie, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Pierre Larrouturou, Charlotte Marchandise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Christiane Taubira who will be able to represent the union of the left carried by this citizens’ initiative.

If Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or even Christiane Taubira are figures of the French left, the primary therefore also invested less identified candidates. This is the case of Anna Agueb-Porterie, 24 years old and from Béarn, MEP Pierre Larrouturou or even Charlotte Marchandise, former assistant in Rennes.

All the candidates, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Yannick Jadot, had not given their agreement to participate in this primary. This does not prevent them from being decided nevertheless during the vote in a round which will be held from January 27 to 30.

Indeed, to be invested in this primary, the only criteria that had to be met, according to Samuel Grzybowski, one of the founders of this citizens’ initiative, was to have been acclaimed within the framework of the citizen sponsorship campaign, which was held from July 11 to October 11, 2021, and for having declared her presidential candidacy before January 15 at noon – which Christiane Taubira did in extremis.

Following this announcement at a press conference, people wishing to vote in the popular Primary have until January 23 to register on the platform. For the moment, 120,000 people are registered according to the site, out of the 300,000 who participated in the sponsorship campaign. By comparison, 122,000 people were registered to vote in the environmental primary and 139,000 participated in the Republican congress.

The ballot will take place according to a method that is still innovative in France, which is majority judgment. Registrants will therefore have to answer a question which will be: “To win ecology and social justice, these candidates are?”. Five different mentions must then be attributed to each of the candidates: “very good”, “Good”, “good enough”, “fair”, “insufficient”. Despite the novelty, it’s a way to vote “pretty simple because it’s a way of thinking that we have on a daily basis”, insisted on recalling Mathilde Imer, the other founder of the Popular Primary.

The candidate invested in the primary will then have to sign a “gathering contract” which will force him to defend a program based on a common base of proposals, fixed upstream of the popular Primary, and to continue to work for the rally on the left. “On this condition, we will campaign for the person who wins this vote”, committed Samuel Grzybowski.

“Our goal is not to create a clash between candidates who generally defend the same values. Our enemies are not Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Christiane Taubira, and the other candidates of this investiture, these are Valérie Pécresse, Emmanuel Macron, Eric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, and what they wear”, also recalled Mathilde Imer, responding in particular to criticism of the usefulness of such a vote.