Presidential 2022: The French for a united left, without knowing behind whom – EXCLUSIVE – Le HuffPost

via Associated Press

POLITICS – It is often said that the seven is a magic number. Or lucky charm. But for the left, scattered with seven candidates a few months before the presidential election, the sequence of events does not announce anything of a fairy tale.

Last pretender to be on the starting line: Yannick Jadot. Appointed this Tuesday, September 28 by his camp, to wear the colors of political ecology in the spring of 2022, the 53-year-old MEP promises victory to his activists. “The next five-year term will be one of action to regain control of our lives. With you, thanks to you, I will be the president of the climate ”, he thus launched to his supporters gathered in Pantin, in Seine-Saint-Denis, a few minutes after the announcement of his victory.

Problem: rather than this dispersion of forces, between ecologists, socialists, rebels or communists, the French are more favorable to a united left, according to the last survey conducted by YouGov for The HuffPost. Double problem: they do not really know who behind.

No natural unifier

In detail, 51% (against 21%) of those polled by the institute believe that the various left movements and candidates should unite, if they want to reach the second round of the presidential election. A figure that climbs, unsurprisingly, to 80% among supporters of this camp.

The French, on the other hand, are much more skeptical or divided when it comes to choosing the best candidate (between Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Arnaud Montebourg, Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo or Fabien Roussel) to take his comrades behind him. When half prefer not to vote for one or the other, 14% of them believe that the leader of rebellious France “would be in the best position.”

Same score for the former minister of François Hollande, Arnaud Montebourg who, despite voting intentions at half mast (around 2% according to the latest Harris Interactive survey for Challenges), enjoys, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the best – or the least bad – unifying capital. In this little game, Anne Hidalgo (10%), Yannick Jadot (5%), Sandrine Rousseau (survey carried out the day before the results of the environmentalist primary) and PCF boss Fabien Roussel (2%) come far behind.

Half of the French in the dark

A data, combined with polls of voting intentions, which shows all the way to go for these different personalities before imposing their candidacy on others. Yannick Jadot, in particular, who put the package on his status of “unifier” in the last hectometers of the green primary, will have a lot to do to convince voters and his competitors.

“I have gathered all these personalities, I have reached out and I continue to reach out. (…) We are going to need this great ecological project because our health, our very conditions of existence are involved ”, launched again, Tuesday evening, on France 2, the one for whom the ecological forces must now“ govern this country.”

Reason for hope, for him and the others: while the race for the Elysee is accelerating, between the outcome of the primary of the Greens, pretender Zemmour’s pre-campaign where the upcoming Congress of Republicans, half of people polled by YouGov (51%) say they do not know who they will vote for next spring. When, at the same time, 84% of the French do not imagine missing this democratic meeting. Enough to let sparkle a game more open than expected? There are less than seven months left for the magic to work.

Survey carried out from September 27 to 28, 2021 among 1,030 people representative of the national population aged 18 and over, using the quota method. In partnership with: