French presidential election, 2017

Posted on April 24, 2017 by jazzy800

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article documents a current election. Information may change rapidly as the election progresses, until official results have been published. Initial news reports may be unreliable, and the last updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. (April 2017)

French presidential election, 2017

← 2012

23 April and 7 May 2017

2022 →


Nominee	Emmanuel Macron	Marine Le Pen
Party	EM	FN

Results of the first round by department Emmanuel Macron Marine Le Pen François Fillon

Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Incumbent President
François Hollande
PS

The first round of the 2017 French presidential election was held on 23 April 2017. As no candidate won a majority, a run-off election between the top two candidates, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! and Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN), will be held on 7 May 2017. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he would not seek reelection in light of low approval ratings, making him the first incumbent president of the Fifth Republic not to seek re-election. This is also the first French presidential election in which nominees of both the main centre-left and centre-right parties were selected through open primaries. The presidential election will be followed by a legislative election to elect members of the National Assembly on 11 and 18 June.

François Fillon of the Republicans (LR), after winning the party’s first ever open primary, and Marine Le Pen of the National Front led first-round opinion polls in November 2016 and mid-January 2017. Polls tightened considerably by late January, and after the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné published revelations that Fillon possibly employed family members in fictitious jobs as parliamentary assistants in what came to be colloquially known as “Penelopegate“, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! overtook Fillon to place consistently second in first-round polling. At the same time, Benoît Hamon won the Socialist Party primary, entering fourth place in the polls. After strong debate performances, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France insoumise began to rise significantly in polls in late March, overtaking Hamon to place just below Fillon.

Estimates of the first-round result, as well as ballot counts published by the Interior Ministry, indicate that Macron and Le Pen will continue to the 7 May runoff. It is the first time since 2002 that a National Front candidate continued to the second round and the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that the runoff will not include a nominee of the traditional centre-left or centre-right parties;^[1] their combined share of the vote, at approximately 26%, was also a historic low.^[2]

Results

First round

Results of the first round by department

Second-place candidate by department

Emmanuel Macron Marine Le Pen François Fillon Jean-Luc Mélenchon

e • d Summary of the 23 April and 7 May 2017 French presidential election results
Candidate		Party		1st round		2nd round
Candidate		Party		Votes	%	Votes	%
	Emmanuel Macron	En Marche!	EM	8,437,940	23.90%
	Marine Le Pen	National Front	FN	7,564,991	21.42%
	François Fillon	The Republicans	LR	7,041,511	19.94%
	Jean-Luc Mélenchon	La France insoumise	FI	6,907,100	19.56%
	Benoît Hamon	Socialist Party	PS	2,244,080	6.35%
	Nicolas Dupont-Aignan	Debout la France	DLF	1,676,416	4.75%
	Jean Lassalle	Résistons !		430,838	1.22%
	Philippe Poutou	New Anticapitalist Party	NPA	389,245	1.10%
	François Asselineau	Popular Republican Union	UPR	325,889	0.92%
	Nathalie Arthaud	Lutte Ouvrière	LO	229,965	0.65%
	Jacques Cheminade	Solidarity and Progress	S&P	64,371	0.18%

Total				35,312,346	100%

Valid votes				35,312,346	97.42%
Spoilt and null votes				935,448	2.58%
Turnout				36,247,794	78.27%
Abstentions				10,063,585	21.73%
Registered voters				46,311,379

Sources: Constitutional Council, Ministry of the Interior

Background

Speaking time of candidates and supporters from 1 February to 10 April recorded by the CSA^[3]

Fillon			300h58
Hamon			255h51
Macron			234h03
Le Pen			229h02
Mélenchon			160h36
Dupont-Aignan			44h00
Others			82h33

The President of the French Republic is elected to a five-year term in a two-round election under Article 7 of the Constitution: if no candidate secures an absolute majority (including blank and void ballots) of votes in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later between the two candidates who received the most votes.^[4] In 2017, the first and second rounds are planned for 23 April and 7 May.^[5]

To be listed on the first-round ballot, candidates must secure 500 signatures (often referred to as parrainages) from national or local elected officials from at least 30 different departments or overseas collectivities, with no more than a tenth of these signatories from any single department.^[6] The official signature collection period followed the publication of the Journal officiel on 25 February to 17 March.^[7] The collection period had initially been scheduled to begin on 23 February, but a visit by Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to China on that date forced a delay in the issue of the decree in the Journal officiel to start the sponsorship period.^[8] French prefectures mailed sponsorship forms to the 42,000 elected officials eligible to give their signature to a candidate, which must then be delivered to the Constitutional Council for validation. Unlike in previous years, a list of validated signatures was posted on Tuesday and Thursday of every week on the Council’s website; in the past, signatories were published only after the official candidate list had been verified after the end of the collection period. The end of the signature collection period also marked the deadline for the declaration of personal assets required of prospective candidates. The final list of candidates was proclaimed on 21 March.^[7]

The Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) ensures that all candidates receive equal time in broadcast media “under comparable programming conditions” from 19 March onward.^[5] The CSA warned on 8 March that the amount of speaking time broadcasters had given Fillon and his supporters was “unusually high”, even given the unusual circumstances surrounding his candidacy.^[9] After the official start of the campaign on 10 April, the CSA will strictly enforce equal time in broadcast media. Campaigning for the first round of the election ends at midnight on 21 April, two days before the vote. The Constitutional Council will verify the results of the first round on 24–26 April and officially certify the vote tallies on 26 April; should a second round be held on 7 May, the same procedure will be used again. The new President of the French Republic will be proclaimed on 11 May and undergo their investiture ceremony on 14 May at the latest.^[5]

Candidates

On 18 March 2017, the Constitutional Council published the names of the 11 candidates who received 500 valid sponsorships, with the order of the list determined by drawing lots.^[10]

Candidate (name and age)^[11] and political party	Political office(s)	Details
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (56) Debout la France (DLF)	President of Debout la France (since 2008) Deputy for Essonne (since 1997) Mayor of Yerres (since 1995)	A former member of the RPR, RPF, and UMP, Dupont-Aignan left the last over disagreements with Nicolas Sarkozy on the eve of the 2007 presidential election, and subsequently founded the sovereignist political party Debout la République (DLR), later renamed to Debout la France (DLF) in 2014. He previously stood as a candidate in the 2012 presidential election, in which he garnered 1.79% of the vote in the first round. Claiming the mantle of Gaullism, he seeks to position himself between Le Pen and Fillon.^[12]
Marine Le Pen (48) National Front (FN)	President of the National Front (since 2011) MEP for North-West France (since 2004)	When Le Pen, a former lawyer, stood in the 2012 presidential election, she came in third with 17.90% of first-round votes. She rose within the ranks of the National Front (FN), founded and once led by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, culminating in a bitter leadership struggle which she won in 2011. Her campaign program prioritizes the national interests of France and exit from the eurozone,^[12] and emphasizes her party’s traditional concern about security and immigration, as well as socioeconomic issues and the sovereignty of the French state, on matters of currency, borders, the economy, and the rule of law.^[13] Her campaign has been punctuated by judicial inquiries into her party and personal associates.^[12]
Emmanuel Macron (39) En Marche! (EM!)	President of En Marche! (since 2016) Minister of the Economy, Industry, and Digital Affairs (2014–16)	The youngest candidate in the race and a former economy minister who has never run for elected office, Macron describes himself as “neither of the right nor the left”. He was appointed deputy secretary-general of the Élysée in 2012 and became economy minister in 2014, lending his name to the “Macron law” to promote economic growth and opportunities. He founded the En Marche! movement in April 2016 before resigning from the cabinet on 30 August.^[12] The most explicitly pro-European of the candidates, Macron intends to implement reforms to modernize the French economy.^[13] Macron secured support across the political spectrum, but primarily among left-wing figures;^[14] notable supporters include perennial centrist candidate François Bayrou, president of the Democratic Movement (MoDem),^[15]and Minister of Defence Jean-Yves Le Drian.^[16]
Benoît Hamon (49) Socialist Party (PS)	Deputy for Yvelines (2012 and since 2014) Other offices [show]	Hamon, a left-wing critic of Hollande‘s government, was the surprise winner of the Socialist primary in January 2017, defeating former Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Hamon’s primary victory was driven in part by his support for a universal basic income, which remained integral to his program. He negotiated the withdrawal and support of Yannick Jadot of Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV) in February, becoming the joint candidate of both parties.^[12] He also advocates for the legalization of cannabis and reforming the structure of government to a “Sixth Republic”.^[13]
Nathalie Arthaud (47) Lutte Ouvrière (LO)	Spokesperson of Lutte Ouvrière (since 2008)	Arthaud first ran for the presidency in the 2012 election under the LO banner, receiving 0.56% of votes in the first round. A professor of economics, she describes the objective of her candidacy as to “make the workers’ voice heard”, hoping to “allow workers, the unemployed, and exploited to defend their interests, as opposed to [those who pocketed] millions and millions”.^[12] She claims that she is the only communist candidate, and wants to see borders disappear and overthrow capitalism.^[13]
Philippe Poutou (50) New Anticapitalist Party (NPA)	Spokesperson of the New Anticapitalist Party (since 2009)	A long-time left-wing militant, Poutou is a trade unionist and Ford mechanic in Blanquefort currently fighting the local factory’s shutdown. He also ran in the 2012 presidential election, obtaining 1.15% of votes. He launched his political activities at Lutte Ouvrière before joining the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) which became the NPA in 2009.^[12] With Marxist and anarchist roots, he crusades against capitalism and espouses radical-left ideas.^[13]
Jacques Cheminade (75) Solidarity and Progress (S&P)	President of Solidarity and Progress (since 1996)	Cheminade founded Solidarity and Progress in 1996 and is the figurehead of the LaRouche movement in France. He proposes leaving NATO, the EU, the eurozone, and returning to the franc. He supports colonization of the Moon to facilitate exploration of Mars. He was a candidate twice before, in 1995 and 2012, collecting 0.28% and 0.25% of the vote, respectively, but failed to appear on the ballot in 1981, 1988, 2002, and 2007.^[12]
Jean Lassalle (61) Résistons !	Deputy for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (since 2002) Mayor of Lourdios-Ichère (since 1977)	Lassalle, a former member of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) and associate of François Bayrou running under the banner of Resistons !, considers himself the “defender of rural territories and a humanist ecology”. He became famous for a successful 39-day hunger strike protesting the movement of the Total factory from Accous to the Lacq basin 65 km (40 mi) away. In 2013, he walked 6,000 km (3,700 mi) on foot to “meet the French”.^[12]
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (65) La France insoumise (FI)	MEP for South-West France (since 2009) Other offices [show]	Denouncing the “liberal drift” of the party, Mélenchon left the PS in 2008 to found the Left Party. He attempted a previous run in 2012, coming in fourth with 11.10% of votes,^[12] with the backing of the French Communist Party (PCF). The perennial critic of the Hollande government launched his 2017 bid without consulting the PCF, instead choosing to found his own movement, La France insoumise (FI).^[13] He later won the PCF’s support by a narrow margin.^[17] His program underlines left-wing and environmental principles,^[12] including the establishment of a Sixth Republic, redistribution of wealth, renegotiating EU treaties, environmental planning, and protecting the independence of France, namely from the United States.^[13] He ran an innovative campaign, gathering a large following on social media,^[18] and holding simultaneous meetings in multiple cities via hologram.^[19]
François Asselineau (59) Popular Republican Union (UPR)	President of the UPR (since 2007)	A sovereignist, Asselineau surprised with his ability to secure the 500 sponsorships required to stand as a candidate. Formerly of the RPF and UMP, he founded the Popular Republican Union (UPR) in 2007 and agitates for the French exit from the EU.^[12] Sometimes classified as a far-right Eurosceptic, he denounces “American imperialism” and proposes leaving NATO.^[13]
François Fillon (63) The Republicans (LR)	Deputy for Paris (since 2012) Prime Minister (2007–12) Other offices [show]	Fillon led a prolific political career starting from the early 1970s. The surprise winner of the primary of the right offered a liberal economic program ending the 35-hour workweek, dismissing 500,000 civil servants, abolishing the wealth tax (ISF), streamlining the labour code, and reforming the health insurance system. However, his campaign was hobbled in January 2017 following the publication of allegations of fictitious employment of family members, including his wife, collectively known as “Penelopegate“. He initially said he would drop his bid if placed under formal investigation, but continued his candidacy after such investigations began on 15 March.^[12]

Non-candidates

Socialist Party (PS)

The 2017 presidential election was the first in the history of the Fifth Republic in which a sitting president did not seek a second term. On 1 December 2016, incumbent president François Hollande, acknowledging his low approval ratings, announced he would not seek a second term. His then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared that he would run in the Socialist primary on 5 December,^[20] but he was defeated by Benoît Hamon in its second round on 29 January.^[21]

Democratic Movement (MoDem)

François Bayrou in 2006

François Bayrou, the three-time centrist presidential candidate and leader of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) – who came fourth in 2002, third in 2007, and fifth in 2012 – initially supported the candidacy of Alain Juppé in the primary of the right against his long-time adversary Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he vowed to run against if he won the primary.^[22] However, Fillon’s victory in the primary – which saw the elimination of Sarkozy in the first round and the defeat of Juppé in the runoff – led Bayrou to reconsider lodging a bid for the presidency, despite his 2014 election promise during his successful mayoral campaign in Pau that he would not seek the presidency if he won. After an extended period of suspense, he finally announced on 22 February that he would not run for a fourth time, instead proposing a conditional alliance with Emmanuel Macron, who accepted his offer.^[15]

Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)

On 9 July 2016, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV) announced that it would hold a primary election before the 2017 presidential election. Those wishing to be nominated required the support of 36 of its “federal councilors” out of 240; nominations were open to individuals in civic society as well. The vote was open to both party members as well as sympathizers who could register to vote in the primary. The announcement came just days after prominent environmentalist Nicolas Hulot‘s surprise declaration that he would not offer himself as a presidential candidate on 5 July.^[23] EELV were the first party to hold a presidential primary for the 2017 election, with two rounds held on 19 October and 7 November 2016. It was contested by deputy, former Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing, and ex-party leader Cécile Duflot, as well as three MEPs – Karima Delli, Yannick Jadot, and Michèle Rivasi.^[24]

Voting materials for the first round of the ecologist primary

Duflot was considered the early favorite, though she initially opposed holding a primary, aware of the risk that she might lose it; and highlighted her experience in government. Her main proposal was to incorporate the fight against climate change into the Constitution. Jadot was perceived as her main challenger; elected as an MEP in 2009, he worked with Greenpeace France from 2002 to 2008, specializing in transatlantic trade and climate issues. With Thomas Piketty and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he sought a “primary of all the left”, which failed to materialize. He rejected the “candidacy awaited by the political-media world” – that of Duflot, among others – and represented an anti-Duflot force from the party’s right wing. Rivasi only barely managed to qualify for the primary, earlier lacking the necessary sponsorships. Like Jadot, she represents the militant wing of the party – albeit on its left flank – and served as deputy for Drôme from 1997 to 2002 and led Greenpeace France from 2003 to 2004. Delli, the daughter of Algerian immigrants, first became involved in politics as part of collective movements, and sought to become an MEP in 2009 after a stint as parliamentary assistant to Marie-Christine Blandin. Also of the party’s left-wing, she declared that she would defend a “popular ecology” and hoped to outmaneuver Jadot to the second round.^[24]

Jadot and Rivasi advanced to the runoff after scoring 35.61% and 30.16%, respectively, in the first round; the other two candidates were eliminated, with Duflot garnering 24.41% and Delli 9.82%. Jadot won the second round of the primary on 7 November, obtaining 54.25% of the vote against Rivasi’s 40.75%, becoming the nominee of the EELV in the presidential election.^[25] Jadot, who claimed 496 sponsorships just before the opening of the collection period,^[26]withdrew his candidacy on 23 February and endorsed Hamon, the pair having agreed on a common platform.^[27] An online vote among EELV primary voters from 24 and 26 February was required to confirm the agreement; an earlier vote to open talks with Hamon and Mélenchon was approved by 89.7% of those electors.^[28] The Hamon–Jadot alliance was consummated on 26 February; among those who cast a vote, 79.53% voted to support it, with 15.39% opposed and 5.08% submitting blank ballots, and an overall voter turnout of 55.25% (9,433 votes).^[29] This marks the first election since 1969 without a green candidate.^[30]

Primaries

The Republicans (LR)

Main article: The Republicans (France) presidential primary, 2016

First-round results by department

François Fillon

Alain Juppé

Nicolas Sarkozy

After his loss as the nominee of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in the 2012 presidential election, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to return to being a “Frenchman among the French”. However, he announced on 19 September 2014 that he would seek the presidency of the party,^[31] a position he secured in an online vote on 29 November online vote with the backing of 64.50% of party members, against his main opponent Bruno Le Maire‘s 29.18%. He succeeded the triumvirate of Alain Juppé, François Fillon, and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which assumed the party’s leadership after the resignation of Jean-François Copé.^[32] Sarkozy was initially reluctant to accept the idea of holding a right-wing primary for the 2017 presidential election, but on 25 September 2014 he declared his support for a primary of the right after a warning from Juppé,^[33] who on 20 August made public his intention to run for the nomination.^[34]

The rules of the primary were confirmed in April 2015, scheduling the first round of an open primary for 20 November 2016, with a runoff on 27 November if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote. Those wishing to vote were required to pay €2 per ballot and sign a charter indicating their adherence to “Republican values of the right and centre”.^[35] In order to appear on the ballot, prospective candidates needed to present sponsorships from 250 elected officials, including at least 20 parliamentarians from at least 30 departments, with no more than a tenth from the same department, in addition to the signatures of at least 2,500 party members across at least 15 departments, with no more than a tenth from the same department.^[36] The charter permitted other parties wishing to participate to set their own sponsorship requirements.^[35] The High Authority ultimately determined that seven candidates qualified to compete in the open primary of the right and centre: Fillon, Juppé, Le Maire, Copé, Sarkozy, and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet of the Republicans,^[37] the party’s name after May 2015,^[38]as well as Jean-Frédéric Poisson of the Christian Democratic Party (PCD), who was not required to present signatures as the leader of another party.^[37]^[39] The National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) were also allowed to participate, but not to present a candidate.^[40]

Second-round results by department

François Fillon

Alain Juppé

The primary was initially fought primarily between Juppé and Sarkozy, the top two candidates in primary polls.^[41] Sarkozy’s program emphasized the themes of Islam, immigration, security, and defense. He proposed to end family reunifications and reform the right to birthright citizenship, halt the flow of economic migrants, and increase residence requirements to secure French nationality. He reaffirmed his interest in the “assimilation” of immigrants, and intended to ban other menus for school canteens (i.e., options for Muslim students) as well as Muslim headscarves at universities. Sarkozy also suggested that radical imams be expelled and suspected terrorists be detained by authorities and tried by a special anti-terrorist court, in addition a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. He proposed to postpone the increase the retirement age to 64 until 2024, permit exemptions to the 35-hour workweek, cut 300,000 civil service jobs by increasing working hours to 37 per week, and abolish the wealth tax (ISF). Like Le Maire, he did not rule out the possibility of a referendum on the European Union (EU).^[42] He also sought a European treaty “refounding”, the creation of a European monetary fund, to commit 2% to defense spending by 2025,^[43] and to reduce public spending by €100 billion and taxes by €40 billion while reducing the budget deficit to under 3% of GDP.^[44]

In contrast to Sarkozy, Juppé spoke of a “happy identity” and emphasized the importance of integration as opposed to assimilation.^[45] He supported drawing up a common list of “safe countries” to differentiate refugees from economic migrants, setting a “quota” on immigrants as necessary, and to stop providing foreign aid to countries refusing to comply with their obligation to accept deported citizens. He questioned Sarkozy’s proposals on Schengen and instead merely acknowledged that it was not functioning correctly, but concurred with him in exempting the acquisition of French nationality by foreigners at the age of 18 if previously convicted.^[46] Juppé also demanded transparency on the funding of places of worship, civic training for imams, and, unlike Sarkozy, favored allowing women to wear the Muslim headscarf at universities. On economic issues, he proposed to end the 35-hour workweek, abolish the wealth tax, reduce corporate taxation, and set the retirement age at 65. He also pledged to slash in half the number of parliamentarians, renegotiate Schengen, and increase defense spending in absolute terms by at least €7 billion by 2022.^[47]

After several strong debate performances by Fillon, however, a second-round Juppé–Sarkozy duel no longer appeared inevitable.^[48] Fillon’s rise was propelled by his proposals for a rigorous economic program. Seeking €100 billion in cuts, he proposed eliminating 500,000 civil service jobs by 2022 and a return to the 39-hour workweek for civil servants. Like the other primary candidates, he planned to eliminate the wealth tax; in addition, Fillon suggested abolishing the 35-hour workweek – capping it at the 48-hour maximum allowed within the EU – and the implementation of other liberal economic measures. He also adopted a staunchly conservative social program, opposing adoption by same-sex couples and arguing France had no religious problem apart from Islam itself. Like Sarkozy, he sought to expand the capacity of French prisons, but unlike his former superior, he opposed banning religious symbols in public places. He also professed a more pro-Russian stance than other candidates, urging cooperation in Syria against the Islamic State and supporting the “pragmatism” of Vladimir Putin‘s intervention in the Syrian civil war.^[49]

The first round of the primary on 20 November saw the unexpected elimination of Sarkozy, with Fillon coming in first with 44.1%, Juppé at 28.6%, and Sarkozy at 20.7% of the vote, and all other candidates far behind. A second round between Fillon and Juppé was confirmed, and Sarkozy announced that he would vote for his former Prime Minister soon after the results became clear.^[50]^[51] Fillon scored a landslide victory in the 27 November runoff with 66.5% of the vote to Juppé’s 33.5% and became the Republicans’ nominee; voter turnout – at 4.4 million – was even higher than in the first round.^[52]^[53]

Socialist Party (PS)

Main article: French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2017

First-round results by department

Benoît Hamon

Manuel Valls

Arnaud Montebourg

Sylvia Pinel

At the 2012 Toulouse Congress, the Socialist Party (PS) modified its statutes to guarantee the selection of a candidate of the left through open primaries, with the National Council of the Socialist Party announcing the timetable and organization of the primaries at least one year beforehand.^[54] On 11 January, Libération published an editorial in favor of a “primary of the left and ecologists”,^[55] and on 9 April the National Council of the Socialist Party unanimously approved the idea of holding a such a primary in early December.^[56] On 18 June, the National Council finally confirmed that it would organize a primary to select a candidate for the 2017 presidential election. Applications could be submitted from 1 to 15 December, with two rounds of voting planned for 22 and 29 January 2017.^[57] Prospective PS candidates were required to sign the primary’s charter of ethics requiring candidates to rally behind its winner and to secure the support of 5% of one of the following groups: members of the National Council; Socialist parliamentarians, regional and departmental Socialist councilors in at least 4 regions and 10 departments; or Socialist mayors representing more than 10,000 people in at least 4 regions and 10 departments.^[58] The conditions for becoming a the candidate of other member parties of the BAP – the PRG, UDE, PE, and Democratic Front (FD) – were determined by the respective parties’ leadership.^[59]

The EELV declared on 20 June that it would not participate in the primary,^[60] and the French Communist Party (PCF) did likewise the following day.^[61] After declaring his candidacy for the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! also declined to participate,^[62]as did Jean-Luc Mélenchon under the banner of La France insoumise, saying that he did not want to run in a primary with François Hollande since he would not be able to support Hollande if he won.^[63] He later reaffirmed this by saying that with the exclusion of the EELV and PRG the primary was not truly “of the left” but a “primary of the Socialist Party”.^[64] On 1 December, Hollande declared that he would not seek a second term, becoming the first President of the Fifth Republic to renounce a reelection bid. His announcement reflected his high personal unpopularity and resentment among Socialist colleagues regarding remarks he made about cabinet members and other associates in the book Un président ne devrait pas dire ça… (A president should not say that…) by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, journalists at Le Monde.^[65]

Second-round results by department

Benoît Hamon

Manuel Valls

On 17 December, the High Authority declared that seven candidates qualified to appear on the ballot: four from the Socialist Party – former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Arnaud Montebourg, Benoît Hamon, and Vincent Peillon – and François de Rugy of the PE, Sylvia Pinel of the PRG, and Jean-Luc Bennahmias of the PD.^[66] Early opinion polling placed Valls and Montebourg first and second, respectively, with Hamon a close third.^[67] Shortly after declaring his candidacy on 5 December, Valls proposed to abolish article 49.3 of the French constitution, a procedure that allows bypassing legislative approval, in a “democratic renaissance”; as Prime Minister, he invoked it on six occasions, using it to pass the Macron and El Khomri laws.^[68] He also proposed a 2.5% increase in public spending while keeping the budget deficit under 3%, guaranteeing a “decent income” of €800, reducing the gender pay gap by half, pausing the enlargement of the European Union, appending a charter of secularism to the Constitution, consolidating the nuclear industry, and mandating six months of civic service.^[69]^[70] He was twice physically attacked during the primary campaign: on 22 December, he was flour-bombed by a protester in Strasbourg saying “we do not forget [the 49.3]!”,^[71] and on 17 January, he was slapped by a young Breton regionalist in Lamballe, who was subsequently charged.^[72]

Former Minister of the Economy Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist rebel known for promoting “made in France”, presented a firmly left-wing project shortly after declaring his candidacy in August 2016. He promised to offer French enterprises preference in bidding, reverse the 2011 tax increases on the French middle class,^[73] and repeal most of the El Khomri labor law while preserving certain “interesting” social protections such as the “right to disconnect” and “personal activity account”.^[74] Critical of European austerity, he declared that he would defy the requirement to maintain a budget deficit under 3% of GDP and intended to strengthen intelligence services, require six months of civic service, and achieve gender equality.^[73] He also proposed €30 billion in spending to stimulate economic growth, lower the general social contribution (CSG) to increase individuals’ purchasing power by €800 a year, create 5,000 new posts in hospitals, call a referendum on a new republic, promulgate a law on the separation of banking activities (as Hollande did), impose a European carbon tax, and establish a national anti-terrorism prosecutor.^[75]

The signature proposal of Benoît Hamon was the implementation a universal basic income for all French citizens, rolled out in stages beginning in 2018, partially funded by a tax levied on property combining the existing property tax (taxe foncière) and the solidarity tax on wealth (ISF), in addition to a tax on robots to fund social protections in general. Like fellow Socialist dissidents, Hamon criticized the El Khomri labor law and promised to repeal it if elected, and suggested that it be replaced with legislation acknowledging the need for greater social protections, including the right to disconnect and recognizing burnout as an occupational disease.^[76] He also proposed to reduce the 35-hour workweek to 32 hours, saying that it was time to put an end to the “myth” of economic growth. Another of his flagship proposals was to legalize cannabis, using funds for “prevention” rather than “repression”.^[77]

Benoît Hamon congratulated by Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo after his primary victory on 29 January

In the first round of the primary on 22 January, Hamon and Valls received 36.03% and 31.48%, respectively, and advanced to the runoff on 29 January. Montebourg, who secured only 17.52% of votes,^[78] declared that he would cast his second-round vote for Hamon soon after the result became apparent.^[79] Among the remaining candidates, Peillon secured 6.81% of the vote, de Rugy 3.83%, Pinel 2.00%, and Bennahmias 1.02%. Overall turnout stood at 1.66 million.^[78] The legitimacy of the first-round results published by the organizers of the primary was questioned by observers in the French press, who noted that an overnight update added 352,013 votes without significantly changing each candidate’s percentage, with vote totals for each candidate increasing by 28%. Christophe Borgel (fr), president of the organizing committee of the primary, claimed that the anomaly was nothing more than a “bug” induced by pressure to update the level of participation in the first round, effectively acknowledging that the results of the primary were manipulated. Only on 23 January did the High Authority of the primary publish “validated” results.^[80] In the second round of the primary on 29 January, Hamon defeated Valls by a comfortable margin, 58.69% to 41.31%; turnout, at 2.05 million, was considerably higher than in the first round. As the winner of the primary, Hamon became the Socialist nominee for president.^[81]

On 22 February, François de Rugy announced his support for Emmanuel Macron, breaking the commitment requested of former candidates to back the winner of the primary. While acknowledging that Hamon was the legitimate PS nominee, de Rugy said he preferred “coherence to obedience”.^[82] On 13 March, Le Parisien reported that Valls, rather than backing Hamon, would urge voters to support Macron in the first round of the presidential election;^[83] Valls denied the report at the time,^[84] but on 29 March declared that he would vote for Macron but would not rally behind his candidacy.^[85] On 8 April the High Authority of the PS reminded party members to abide by the “principle of loyalty”.^[86] On 15 March, the PRG announced its support for Hamon, securing concessions on issues pertaining to European governance, and confirmed an agreement with the Socialist Party for the legislative elections; this followed a period of hesitation after the primary in which the party contemplated Macron’s candidacy, which secured several of its parliamentarians’ support.^[87]

Fillon affair (Penelopegate)

Main article: Fillon affair

Penelope Fillon in 2007

On 25 January 2017, the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné published an article alleging that Penelope Fillon, wife of François Fillon, was employed as a parliamentary assistant by her husband from 1998 and 2002 and for six months in 2012 with no evidence that she completed any substantial work, while collecting a monthly salary of €3,900 to €4,600. After her husband’s appointment as Minister of Social Affairs in 2002 and later tenure as Minister of National Education, she served as a parliamentary aide to Marc Joulaud, Fillon’s substitute, until 2007, earning a salary upwards of €7,900 during this period. In all, the article claimed that she received €500,000 as a parliamentary aide, in addition to €100,000 as a literary adviser to the Revue des deux Mondes, whose president Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière is a close friend of François Fillon. While deputies in the National Assembly are permitted to employ family members, those are still required to complete legitimate work, evidence of which the paper was unable to find.^[88] The PNF (parquet national financier, or national financial prosecutor’s office) initiated a preliminary investigation into possible embezzlement and misuse of public funds the same day.^[89]

On 26 January, François Fillon appeared on TF1 to respond to allegations of the fictitious employment of his wife, stating that she had “edited my speeches” and “stood in for me at events when I couldn’t be there”, also claiming that the reason that she was never seen working in the Palais Bourbon was because “she was never on the front line”. In the interview, he also disclosed that he paid two of his children while a Senator for the Sarthe between 2005 and 2007, claiming that he did so for work in their capacity as lawyers. He also pledged to resign if he was personally placed under investigation.^[90] However, on 27 January, it was revealed that both Marie and Charles Fillon were only law students when they were employed by their father during his stint in the Senate, contrary to his earlier statements.^[91] Interrogated by investigators the same day, former editor-in-chief of the Revue des deux Mondes Michel Crépu claimed that only “two or maybe three” bylines in the review were attributed to her, also saying that he had seen “no trace” of any work by her that would “resemble [that of] a literary adviser”.^[92]

Marc Joulaud in 2014

On 1 February, a week after its initial report, Le Canard enchaîné published revelations that the total sum received by Penelope Fillon in fictitious jobs apparently totaled more than €930,000; with the addition of the period from 1988 to 1990, her income as a parliamentary assistant now totaled €831,440. In addition, the satirical weekly also revealed that the payments to two of Fillon’s children reached nearly €84,000, with €57,084 net for Marie Fillon and €26,651 for Charles Fillon.^[93] Video excerpts of a May 2007 Sunday Telegraph interview with Penelope Fillon surfaced on 2 February in which she claimed that she had “never been his assistant”, referring to her husband; The footage aired on Envoyé spécial on France 2 that evening.^[94] The PNF expanded investigation into the fictitious employment affair to include Fillon’s two eldest children the same day to verify the veracity of their work, after Le Canard enchaîné reported that neither Marie nor Charles Fillon were lawyers at the time their father served in the Senate.^[95] In a video on 3 February, François Fillon insisted that he would maintain his candidacy and called on his supporters to “hold the line”, seeking to assuage worries from within his own camp about the maintenance of his candidacy.^[96]

On 6 February, Fillon held a press conference at which he “apologized to the French people” and acknowledged that he had committed an “error” in employing family members as parliamentary assistants, but appended that he “never broke the law”. He also argued that his wife’s “salary was perfectly justified”, adding that everything reported by the press on the issue was “legal and transparent”. He said he would not reimburse the payments received by his wife or children, and, saying that he had “nothing to hide”, divulged his property holdings. In addition to promising that his lawyers would question the competency of the PNF to carry out the investigation, he lambasted a “media lynching” of his campaign. His remarks followed Juppé’s declaration that “NO means NO” earlier in the day in response to rumors that he might replace Fillon as the party’s candidate should he decide to drop his bid.^[97]

Sarkozy in 2015

Le Canard enchaîné continued its run of stories on Fillon in its issue of 8 February, revealing that Penelope Fillon collected severance payments totaling €45,000, with €16,000 in August 2002 for the period 1998–2002 and €29,000 in 2013 for seventeen months of employment for which she earned €65,839. The satirical weekly also asserted that she received a double salary during the summer of 2002, as she was hired by Joulaud’s office on 13 July, more than a month before her contract as a parliamentary assistant with her husband expired, on 21 August. Although aides are eligible to collect severance payments, the law does not permit such a high level for parliamentary assistants. An article in the same issue reported that Marie Fillon was simultaneously employed as a parliamentary assistant while training to become a lawyer, taking the first post in October 2005 and entering the EFB in January 2006. Fillon responded to the claims in a press release by saying that Le Canard enchaîné conflated the amount his wife collected in November 2013 with reported earnings in August 2007 after the conclusion of her work with Joulaud,^[98] and denounced the paper’s allegations as “lies”.^[99]

On 16 February, Fillon seemingly withdrew his earlier promise that he would terminate his candidacy if placed under formal investigation, saying “even if I am put under investigation, nothing will stop me” in private.^[100] In an interview with Le Figaro published on 17 February, he insisted on continuing his campaign, declaring “I am the candidate and I will continue until victory” and that the closer to the election it was, the “more scandalous it would be to deprive the right and centre of a candidate”.^[101] On 24 February the PNF finally opened a judicial investigation into the “embezzlement of public funds, […] influence-peddling and failure to comply with transparency obligations of the HATVP” against François Fillon, his wife, two of his children, and Marc Joulaud (who were left unnamed, presumably, to allow for expanding the investigation to other suspects, if necessary). The OCLCIFF, which failed to unearth any tangible proof of work by Fillon’s wife as a parliamentary assistant to her husband from 1988 to 1990, 1998 to 2000, and 2012 to 2013 or to Marc Joulaud from 2002 to 2007, and was unconvinced by the two reviews in the Revue des deux Mondes attributed to Penelope Fillon, tasked three investigative judges to continue pursuing the affair.^[102] These three judges were identified on 27 February as Serge Tournaire, Stéphanie Tacheau, and Aude Buresi.^[103]

Jean-Christophe Lagarde in 2015

On 1 March, Fillon was informed that he was summoned to appear before the judges and likely to be placed under formal investigation – generally a precursor to an eventual indictment – on 15 March.^[104] In the subsequent hours and days, hundreds of campaign members, allies, and supporters rescinded their support for Fillon, including the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), a centre-right party whose president Jean-Christophe Lagarde backed Juppé in the primary, suspended its participation in the campaign.^[105] fifteen campaign staffers,^[106] and hundreds of others; a total of 306 elected officials and members of the Fillon campaign withdrew their support for the candidate by 5 March.^[107] Many of those rescinding their support speculated about the potential return of Juppé to replace Fillon as the party’s candidate, with Fenech urging elected officials file sponsorships for the ex-primary candidate.^[108] Meanwhile, associates of Juppé indicated that he was apparently warming to the idea of stepping in to run if needed, “ready but loyal”.^[109]

Alain Juppé in 2015

Despite this chain of defections, François Fillon remained defiant, holding a rally at the Trocadéro on that afternoon intended as show of force.^[110] He then appeared on 20 heures on France 2 that evening, during which he refused to give up his candidacy, saying that “there is no alternative” and adding that “no one today can stop me from being a candidate”, insisting that “it is not the party that will decide” the fate of his candidacy. He said that the rally at the Trocadéro cemented his legitimacy, and that though he would have stepped down two months ago if indicted then, it was now too close to the presidential election and it would be unfair to voters of the right if he quit now. With a “political committee” planned for the following day, he proposed to assemble a modified campaign team, naming François Baroin, Éric Ciotti, and Luc Chatel, in an attempt to rally support around his candidacy.^[111] Immediately after Fillon’s appearance, Juppé announced on Twitter that he give a statement to the press in Bordeaux at 10:30 CET the day after.^[112]

Juppé officially announced his abstention from the race on 6 March, saying that “for me, it is too late”, and added that Fillon was at a “dead end” with his allegations of political assassination.^[113] The same day, the party’s “political committee” rallied behind Fillon, unanimously reaffirming its support for his candidacy.^[114] The same day, Le Canard enchaîné revealed that Fillon had failed to declare to the HATVP a €50,000 loan from Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, president of the Revue des deux Mondes.^[115] The UDI renewed its support for Fillon that evening, albeit only conditionally.^[116] On 13 March, Le Parisien revealed that investigators discovered suspicious wire transfers made by Marie and Charles Fillon to their father while employed by him, with Marie returning €33,000 of the €46,000 she was paid. Charles Fillon, in his hearing, referred to similar transfers to his parents’ joint account, worth about 30% of his salary.^[117]

On the morning of 14 March, Fillon was placed under formal investigation for misuse of public funds, embezzlement, and failure to comply with HATVP disclosure requirements.^[118] On 16 March the investigation into Fillon was extended to “aggravated fraud, forgery, and falsification of records”. In particular, the probe sought to determine whether documents seized during a search of the National Assembly in March were forged in order to corroborate the veracity of Penelope Fillon’s work as a parliamentary assistant.^[119] The investigation was also expanded into possible influence-peddling related to Fillon’s consulting firm 2F Conseil, which was previously hired by billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, owner of the Revue des deux Mondes, which employed Penelope Fillon. In 2013 de Lacharrière also provided a €50,000 loan to François Fillon, who failed to declare it as legally required.^[120] On L’Émission politique on 23 March, Fillon said that Bienvenue Place Beauvau, a book co-authored by Didier Hassoux of Le Canard enchaîné, suggested President Hollande ran a shadow cabinet to spread rumours about his opponents, a claim Hassoux subsequently denied.^[121] On 24 March, Marc Joulaud, Fillon’s former substitute, was formally placed under investigation for embezzlement of public funds.^[122] Penelope Fillon was placed under formal investigation for complicity in and concealment of embezzlement and misuse of public funds, as well as aggravated fraud, on 28 March.^[123]

On 10 April, Mediapart revealed that Penelope Fillon had in fact been paid by the National Assembly starting in 1982, not 1986, as earlier claimed by François Fillon.^[124] The edition of Le Canard enchaîné set for publication on 12 April revealed that François Fillon secured his then-fiancée a job three times the minimum wage in a Parisian ministry as early as 1980 while he was serving as deputy chief of staff to Minister of Defence Joël Le Theule; her contract ended in 1981, after 15 months.^[125]

Other incidents

Yannick Jadot (EELV) withdrew to support Hamon

After securing his party’s nomination in its presidential primary on 29 January 2017, Socialist Party (PS) dissident Benoît Hamon proposed forming a “governmental majority” with Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France insoumise (FI) and Yannick Jadot of Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), seeking to “reconcile the left and the environmentalists”. Though Mélenchon had earlier demonstrated hostility to the possibility of an alliance, he expressed “satisfaction” with Hamon’s sentiments shortly after the primary.^[126] On 23 February, Jadot cemented an agreement to withdraw his candidacy in favor of Hamon,^[27] but on 26 February Hamon acknowledged that talks to secure an alliance with Mélenchon had failed, the pair only agreeing to a code of mutual respect.^[127] The talks failed in part because of the candidates’ differing positions on matters related to the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB), EU treaties, European defense, and the obligation to maintain a budget deficit below 3% of GDP, among other divergences.^[128]

During a trip to Algeria on 15 February, Emmanuel Macron, candidate of En Marche!, remarked in an interview with local press that the French presence in the country had been a “crime against humanity” and “truly barbaric”, drawing the ire of numerous right-wing French politicians. François Fillon of the Republicans denounced Macron’s remarks as a “hatred of our history, this constant repentance is unworthy of a candidate for the presidency of the Republic”.^[129] Seeking to put aside the controversy in a meeting in Toulon on 18 February, he attempted to qualify his remarks, saying that he was “sorry” for having “hurt” and “offended” many as a result, but nevertheless continued to insist on acknowledging that France had a responsibility for its colonial past, not just in Algeria.^[130] According to an Ifop survey, a slim majority of French agreed with the sentiment that the country’s colonial history constituted a “crime against humanity” and that the French government ought to present an official apology for the abuses committed during the period, albeit strongly divided along generational lines, with younger voters tending to agree more strongly with Macron’s sentiments.^[131] Nevertheless, his remarks were followed by a temporary resurgence for Fillon in polls of voting intentions.^[132]

Marine Le Pen at Strasbourg in 2014

The various investigations of the fictitious employment of 29 parliamentary assistants to 23 National Front (FN) MEPs, implicating the entourage of Marine Le Pen,^[133] continued through 2017. These fictitious jobs would constitute €7.5 million in losses for European taxpayers from the period 2010 to 2016. The European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) pursued the case, establishing that one of Le Pen’s parliamentary assistants, Catherine Griset, never secured a lease in Brussels during the five years she was employed and only rarely appeared in the European Parliament, while another, Thierry Légier, worked as a bodyguard at the same time.^[134] Though the European Parliament demanded that Le Pen return €298,392 by 31 January 2018,^[135]^[136] representing the salary “unduly paid” to Griset,^[137] she refused to do so,^[135] and the European Parliament began to reduce her salary to reclaim the money.^[136] On 20 February, investigators raided the FN’s headquarters in Nanterre for a second time in connection to the case;^[138] though Le Pen was summoned to appear before judges on 22 February in the Griset case, she refused to do so until after the June legislative elections, invoking the parliamentary immunity granted to her as a MEP.^[139] On 3 March, summoned to appear before judges to potentially be charged for breach of confidence, Le Pen was absent, again affirming that she would not respond to the case before the end of the campaign.^[140] On 6 March, Charles Hourcade, who served as parliamentary assistant to FN MEP Marie-Christine Boutonnet, faced charges of “concealment of breach of confidence” in a separate case; like Le Pen, who described the investigations into the FN’s fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants as a “political operation”, Boutonnet declined to appear before judges.^[141]

On 8 March, the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné revealed that the Inspection générale des finances (IGF) was concerned by potential favoritism during a trip Macron made to Las Vegas in 2016. While visiting the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Macron hosted a “French Tech Night” with French entrepreneurs which was entrusted to Havas by Business France, an agency of the French government, at a total cost of €381,759. No public tender was issued for the event, and Le Canard enchaîné noted that an inquiry requested by Michel Sapin indicated that Havas would likely be charged with favoritism as a result.^[142] On 13 March, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation into favoritism directed at Business France and Havas, but not Macron himself. Business France recognized that the organization of the event on short deadlines potentially led irregularities in the selection of Havas.^[143]

In late March, several candidates commented on the general strike in French Guiana, with Fillon proposing to assist the sugar cane industry, Macron supporting €1 billion in investment over five years, and Le Pen planning to increase the number of police officers and creating a ministerial position for overseas French territories.^[144]

During the early morning of 13 April, the ground floor of the building that houses Le Pen’s campaign headquarters was targeted by an arson attempt,^[145] and on 17 April the seats of the Socialist Party and the Republicans in Lille were burglarized and vandalized at night.^[146]

On April 20, three days before the first round, three police officers were shot and one killed in an attack on the Champs-Élysées, interrupting the 15 minutes pour convaincre (15 minutes to convince) on France 2, a program featuring successive interviews with the 11 candidates; in the following interviews, the remaining candidates paid tribute to the victims of the attack.^[147] In the wake of the attack, Le Pen and Fillon, suspended campaign activities the following day – the final day of campaigning – while Macron canceled two trips and Mélenchon insisted on maintaining his schedule to demonstrate that he would not allow violence to interrupt the democratic process; Hamon made similar remarks, proceeding with one campaign event the following day.^[148]

First round

A voting line on April 22 in Montreal

The official campaign began on 10 April and ended at midnight on 21 April. During this period, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel was to ensure equal speaking time for candidates in audiovisual media.^[5] On French public broadcasters, ten slots were allotted to the eleven candidates from 10 to 18 and 20 April, with nine slots on 19 April and eleven slots – one for each candidate – on 21 April, the final day of active campaigning.^[149]

Voting in the first round took place on Saturday 22 April from 08:00 to 19:00 (local time) in the French overseas departments and territories situated east of the International Date Line and west of metropolitan France (i.e. French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Pierre and Miquelon), as well as at French diplomatic missions in the Americas.^[150] As at 17:00 (local time), the official turnout figures announced were lower in the overseas departments and territories (except for Saint Barthélemy) compared to the 2012 election.^[151] Although voting took place one day before metropolitan France, the election results and final turnout figures will be announced at the same time starting from 20:00 (Paris time) on Sunday 23 April, once voting has ended in metropolitan France.^[152]^[153] Voting in metropolitan France (as well as the French overseas departments and territories of Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion and Wallis and Futuna, and French diplomatic missions outside the Americas) takes place on Sunday 23 April from 08:00 to 19:00 or 20:00 (local time).^[150]

Estimations of the first-round result will be published by pollsters and their partners starting at 20:00 CEST on 23 April. These surveys will be conducted by Kantar Sofres-OnePoint for TF1 and RTL,^[154]^[155] Ipsos–Sopra Steria for France Télévisions and Radio France,^[156] Harris Interactive for M6,^[157] Ifop-Fiducial for CNews, Paris Match, and Sud Radio,^[158] Elabe for BFM TV,^[159] and OpinionWay (without a media client).^[160] Since the April 2016 passage of a law moving the closing times of certain polling stations from 18:00 CEST to 19:00 CEST to prevent leaks of results, survey institutes have raised concerns about the reliability of the first estimates, traditionally embargoed until 20:00 CEST.^[161] Furthermore, given the small margins separating the candidates in pre-election polls, if it is still unclear which two candidates qualified for the second round, institutes may delay releasing estimates.^[157] Ifop increased its number of representative polling stations checked from 150 to 300 and Ipsos from 200–250 to 500,^[160] with the two institutes insisting that the doubling of scanned offices will mean that the results will be clear within an hour, after which the embargo on the estimations is lifted.^[162] These estimations differ from exit polls in that they rely on actual results from hundreds of representative polling stations;^[162] none of the nine major survey institutes will conduct traditional exit polls.^[163]

The official election results will be released by the Constitutional Council.^[5]

Debates

2017 French presidential election debates
Date	Organizers	Moderators	P Present I Invitee NI Non-invitee A Absent invitee	Notes
Arthaud	Poutou	Mélenchon	Hamon	Macron	Lassalle	Fillon	Dupont-Aignan	Asselineau	Le Pen	Cheminade

20 March 21:00 CET	TF1 LCI	Anne-Claire Coudray Gilles Bouleau	NI	NI	P	P	P	NI	P	NI	NI	P	NI	^[164]^[183]
4 April 20:40 CEST	BFM TV CNews	Ruth Elkrief Laurence Ferrari	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	^[171]^[173]
Candidate viewed as “most convincing” in each debate
Debate	Poll source	Arthaud	Poutou	Mélenchon	Hamon	Macron	Lassalle	Fillon	Dupont-Aignan	Asselineau	Le Pen	Cheminade	Notes

20 March TF1/LCI	Elabe		20%	11%	29%		19%		19%		^[184]
OpinionWay	17%	8%	25%	20%	18%	^[185]
Harris*	13%	6%	20%	17%	18%	^[186]
Ifop-Fiducial*	17%	5%	19%	12%	16%	^[187]
4 April BFM TV/CNews	Elabe	3%	5%	25%	9%	21%	1%	15%	6%	3%	11%	0%	^[188]
OpinionWay	1%	3%	20%	8%	19%	2%	17%	5%	3%	10%	0%	^[189]
Harris*	1%	2%	14%	6%	16%	2%	12%	4%	1%	15%	0%	^[190]
Ifop-Fiducial*	2%	6%	24%	7%	19%	2%	16%	5%	2%	16%	1%	^[191]
* Harris and Ifop-Fiducial polls were conducted among those aware of the debate; Elabe and OpinionWay polls among debate viewers.

Electorate

Sociology of the electorate
Demographic	Arthaud/ Poutou	Mélenchon	Hamon	Macron	Fillon	Dupont-Aignan	Le Pen	Others	Turnout
Demographic									Turnout
Total vote	1.9%	19.2%	6.2%	23.7%	19.7%	4.9%	21.9%	2.5%	77.3%
Sex
Men	2%	21%	4%	23%	18%	5%	24%	3%	78%
Women	2%	17%	8%	25%	21%	5%	20%	2%	77%
Age
18–24 years old	3%	30%	10%	18%	9%	6%	21%	3%	71%
25–34 years old	1%	24%	8%	28%	8%	3%	24%	4%	72%
35–49 years old	2%	22%	7%	21%	11%	6%	29%	2%	74%
50–59 years old	3%	21%	6%	21%	13%	6%	27%	3%	76%
60–69 years old	1%	15%	5%	26%	27%	5%	19%	2%	84%
70 or older	0%	9%	3%	27%	45%	4%	10%	2%	88%
Socio-occupational classification
Manager/professional	0%	19%	8%	33%	20%	4%	14%	2%	79%
Intermediate occupations	2%	22%	9%	26%	13%	6%	19%	3%	78%
White-collar workers	4%	22%	6%	19%	8%	7%	32%	2%	71%
Blue-collar workers	4%	24%	5%	16%	5%	5%	37%	4%	71%
Retired	1%	12%	4%	26%	36%	5%	14%	2%	87%
Employment status
Employee	3%	21%	7%	24%	11%	5%	26%	3%	74%
Private employee	2%	20%	6%	25%	12%	6%	26%	3%	73%
Public employee	3%	23%	7%	23%	9%	5%	27%	3%	75%
Self-employed	0%	24%	8%	24%	16%	5%	21%	2%	76%
Unemployed	3%	31%	7%	14%	8%	6%	26%	5%	73%
Education
Less than baccalauréat	2%	17%	4%	19%	19%	6%	30%	3%	75%
Baccalauréat	3%	21%	6%	24%	15%	5%	24%	2%	76%
Bac +2	1%	22%	6%	26%	22%	5%	15%	3%	80%
At least bac +3	1%	20%	10%	30%	24%	4%	9%	2%	81%
Source: Ipsos France^[192]

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the French presidential election, 2017

First-round polling

Second-round polling

Scenario with Macron (EM) and Le Pen (FN)
Scenario with Fillon (LR) and Le Pen (FN)

French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2017

Posted on January 24, 2017 by jazzy800

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socialist Party presidential primary, 2017

2011 ←

22 and 29 January 2017

→ 2022



Candidate	Benoît Hamon	Manuel Valls
Party	PS	PS
Popular vote	582,014	498,114
Percentage	36.35%	31.11%

Previous Socialist nominee
François Hollande

The French Socialist Party held the first round a presidential primary to select a candidate for the 2017 presidential election on 22 January 2017, and will hold a runoff on 29 January between Benoît Hamon and Manuel Valls. It will be the second open primary (primaires citoyennes) held by the center-left coalition, after the primary in 2011 in which François Hollande defeated Martine Aubry to become the Socialist nominee. Hollande went on to defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. However, because of his low approval rating, he announced that he would not seek re-election, becoming the first president of the Fifth Republic to decide not to run for a second term. The primary is contested by seven candidates, four from the Socialist Party and three representing other parties part of the left-wing electoral alliance (la Belle Alliance populaire).

The three frontrunners in the primary are Manuel Valls, who served as Hollande’s Prime Minister from 2014 to 2016 and interior minister from 2012 to 2014; Benoît Hamon, Minister of National Education in 2014; and Arnaud Montebourg, Minister of the Economy, Production Recovery and the Digital Sector from 2012 to 2014. On 22 January, Hamon received 36.35% and Valls 31.11% of the vote in the first round and advanced to the runoff, far ahead of all other candidates and well ahead of Montebourg, who was eliminated and immediately endorsed Hamon.

Background[edit]

The selection of the candidate of the French Socialist Party (PS) by activists was planned since the adoption of statutes at the Epinay Congress in 1971, and the PS ran closed primaries, among party members only, before the 1995 and 2007 presidential elections. In June 2010, prior to the 2012 election, the party decided to open the primary to all citizens, and not only members of the PS, and in October 2011, it held its first open primary which led to the selection of François Hollande as its nominee in the subsequent election, won by the PS. In the party’s Toulouse Congress following the 2011 primary, the principle of open primaries for future presidential elections with the involvement and support of other left-wing political parties was adopted. Given the unpopularity of incumbent president Hollande, discussions were held regarding the possibility of a primary before the 2017 election and its parameters.^[1]^[2]

In February 2016, the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, publicly indicated his support for a primary election within the party.^[3] The primary was announced on 19 June 2016.^[4] It is the first time a party with an incumbent president has held a primary election for over 50 years. Europe Ecology – The Greens, the Communist Party and the Left Party, as well as smaller left-wing parties, will not participate in the primary.^[5] However, the Radical Party of the Left and the Union of Democrats and Ecologists will participate.^[6] On 17 December 2016, after the close of nominations two days earlier, the High Authority for the French Left Primary declared that the nominations for seven candidates had been validated: four candidates from the Socialist Party, the leaders of the Union of Democrats and Ecologists, the leader of the Democratic Front, and a member of the Radical Party of the Left.^[7]

The primary was held against the backdrop of the unpopularity of the ruling Socialists and the fragmentation of the left between three major candidates, with polls indicating that the party’s candidate would come in fifth, behind the National Front‘s Marine Le Pen, François Fillon of the centre-right Republicans, Emmanuel Macron, former economy minister under Hollande who founded his the centrist political movement, En Marche!, and far-left ex-Socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon under the banner of Unsubmissive France. With left-wing votes split between Macron, Mélenchon, and the Socialist candidate, none is likely to advance to the second round.^[8] Macron, the “third man” in the French presidential election and a protegé cultivated by Hollande, founded En Marche! in April 2016, seeking to bridge a “left-right divide” and positioning himself as a liberal economic reformer left-wing on social issues.^[9] Like Macron, Mélenchon has become a stalwart critic of Hollande and his Socialist government, and his bid presents a further threat to the electoral success of the Socialists in the election.^[10] Despite the Socialists facing the prospect of a humiliating defeat,^[11] both Macron and Mélenchon refused to drop their presidential bids, and the Socialists remain insistent on fielding a presidential candidate.^[12]

Candidacies[edit]

Arnaud Montebourg during his 2011 campaign for the Socialist nomination

Former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg, who also ran for the nomination of the Socialists in 2011, was one of the first to declare interest in a speech at Mont Beuvray on 16 May 2016, widely viewed as indicating his interest in running for the presidency, in which he issued a “call” to “build” a “great alternative project for France” to an audience of 200 Socialist Party militants. Among those in attendance were former minister Aurélie Filippetti, as well as MPs Christian Paul, chief among the party’s rebels, having had a part in the foundation of the New Socialist Party caucus along with Montebourg, Laurent Baumel and Patrice Prat.^[13] Montebourg officially declared his candidacy on 16 August, decrying Hollande’s betrayal of the “ideals of the left” in Frangy-en-Bresse in his home département of Saône-et-Loire, and laid out an anti-globalization campaign platform based on protectionism for French businesses, threats to nationalize predatory banks, and tax breaks for the middle class, themes which became central to his campaign.^[14] These themes were reflective of his combative tenure as economy minister, in which he threatened to nationalize divisions of ArcelorMittal and attempted but ultimately failed to to prevent General Electric‘s partial acquisition of French multinational Alstom.^[15]

Former French education minister Benoît Hamon, another founder of the New Socialist Party caucus, declared his candidacy on the same day, arguing that Hollande could “no longer earn the French people’s trust” and proposed to raise the minimum wage, to further reduce the 35-hour workweek instituted by the Socialists in 2000 to 32 hours, a €35 billion stimulus for the French economy,^[16] and legalizing marijuana. His signature campaign plan, however, was his intention to introduce a €300–400 billion universal basic income program funded by a tax on robots, equivalent to a monthly income of approximately €750 per person.^[17] Like Montebourg, he was ejected from the Socialist government by prime minister Manuel Valls in a wider purge of left-wing dissenters after the fall of the First Valls Government in August 2014.^[15] On 1 December 2016, incumbent President François Hollande announced in a televised address from the Élysée Palace that he would not seek a second term in office, clearing the way for Valls to enter the race,^[18] who subsequently announced his candidacy on 5 December.^[19]

Vincent Peillon speaking at the Maison de la Mutualité in 2013

Valls, Montebourg, and Hamon ultimately became the main three contenders for the Socialist nomination, but several other candidates ultimately participated in the primary. Former Minister of National Education Vincent Peillon made a late bid to become the Socialist nominee, announcing his candidacy on 11 December, returning from a two-and-a-half-year residency in Switzerland in which he taught philosophy at the University of Neuchâtel and wrote novels; his bid contrasts with those of Montebourg and Hamon, representing the mainstream Socialist Party as opposed to its left-wing rebels.^[20] Three other candidates, not of the Socialist Party, also ran in the primary as members of the parties of la Belle Alliance Populaire, a left-wing grouping. Among these were MP François de Rugy,^[15] representing the Ecologist Party which he founded along with Senator Jean-Vincent Placé after leaving the EELV in August 2015 over concerns about the party pandering to its left wing;^[21] Sylvia Pinel of the Radical Party of the Left (PRG), and Jean-Luc Bennahmias, who left the Democratic Movement to found his own centre-left party, the Democratic Front.^[15]

Several other candidates also filed petitions to run in the primary, including Senator Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, Gérard Filoche, Fabien Verdier, and Pierre Larrouturou. Despite initially contemplating running, Lienemann decided not to run in the primary on 9 December, worried about the splitting of votes between candidates of the party’s left wing – Montebourg and Hamon – and urging them to unite forces. Although she stated that she faced pressure to withdraw her candidacy, these pressures were not a factor in her recusal from the primary.^[22] Filoche, a trade unionist, failed to secure the necessary number of sponsors to enter the primary (though he attempted to lodge a challenge against the decision of the High Authority),^[23] as did Verdier. Both men claimed that, because they represented other left-wing parties (Parti politique Filoche2017 and Convictions, respectively), they were not bound by the requirement to seek sufficient support, as with Pinel, de Rugy, and Bennahmias; nevertheless, the decision to exclude both was reaffirmed.^[24] Larrouturou’s application was rejected because his New Deal party was not a member of the left-wing alliance for the primary, as were those of Bastien Faudot of the Citizen and Republican Movement and Sébastien Nadot of the Movement of Progressives.^[25]

Campaign[edit]

Polling: Who was the most convincing candidate during this debate?
Debate	Poll source	Among all respondents			Among left-wing sympathizers
Debate	Poll source	Valls	Montebourg	Hamon	Valls	Montebourg	Hamon
1	Elabe*	26%	29%	20%	28%	23%	27%
	Odoxa**	27%	33%	20%	34%	25%	27%
	Harris**	29%	20%	22%	31%	17%	32%
2	Elabe*	26%	29%	25%	28%	24%	30%
2	Harris**	23%	30%	26%	27%	24%	36%
3	Elabe*	21%	28%	29%	24%	23%	34%
	OpinionWay*	19%	20%	24%	25%	23%	32%
	Harris**	24%	26%	28%	25%	26%	34%
* conducted among viewers of the debate ** among those aware of the debate excluding “none of these candidates” among those intending to vote in the primary as opposed to left-wing sympathizers

The unpopularity of incumbent president Hollande led to widespread speculation as to whether he would choose to run for re-election, facing fierce competition within his own party in the Socialist primary; when he ultimately renounced his candidacy on 1 December 2016,^[18] he cleared the way for prime minister Manuel Valls to enter the field on 5 December.^[19]Valls, considered the “natural successor” to Hollande and whose attempts to modernize the Socialist Party have been characterized as similar to those of Tony Blair with the British Labour Party, earned a reputation for his law-and-order approach as prime minister, instituting business-friendly supply-side reforms and taking a tough position on migration, at one point even questioning whether Islam was compatible with the French Republic; all these views placed him well to the right wing of his party. Valls’ important role in Hollande’s government resulted in him becoming similarly unpopular, even within his own party and on the left.^[15]^[26]

On 15 December, he declared that if elected president, he would abolish article 49-3, an executive degree enshrined within the Constitution of France. He controversially used it as prime minister to force laws through the National Assembly, bypassing legislative approval, to send them directly to the Senate,^[27] and his repudiation of the 49-3 was met with derision, Valls having used it to force through controversial labour reforms in the El Khomri law and the reformist Macron law, moves often described as indicative of his authoritarian tendencies.^[28] Valls further attempted to portray himself as a candidate “profoundly of the left” by backing down on his earlier tough tone towards labour, promising not to institute any further reforms to France’s 35-hour workweek – beloved by the French left – nor its labour laws, instead taking an anti-austerity tone; despite this, his campaign was overshadowed by past policies such as the abolition of the wealth tax.^[29]

Unveiling his platform on 3 January 2017, he proposed a 2.5% increase in public spending contingent on annual economic growth of 1.9% while keeping the deficit below the 3% of GDP requirement mandated by the Stability and Growth Pact, the creation a “decent income” of €800 for all adult French nationals, halving the gender pay gap in France, a “pause” in the enlargement of the European Union, the addition of a charter of secularism to the Constitution, and the consolidation of the nuclear industry.^[30]^[31] Valls was physically attacked twice during the campaign; the first incident occurred on 22 December 2016, in which he was flour-bombed by a protester screaming “We do not forget the 49-3. We don’t forgive it,” a reference to his claim that he would abolish the constitutional provision he twice used to bypass legislative approval, during a visit to a Christmas market in Strasbourg.^[32] The second incident, on 17 January 2017, involved an apparent Breton nationalist who slapped him during a campaign stop in Lamballe; although Valls initially brushed the episode off, saying “it’s nothing,”^[33] he later made to press charges, saying “Democracy cannot be about violence.”^[34]

Benoît Hamon at a gathering of supporters in Saint-Denis

Valls’ most prominent opponent was initially considered to be former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg,^[29] who formally unveiled his platform in Paris on 3 January. The left-wing firebrand proclaimed that French employees should receive wage rises equivalent to executives’ in order to constrain corporate pay and called for a “supertax” on banks to raise €5 billion a year. Challenged by former education minister Benoît Hamon, who argued that the focus on economic growth and employment is misplaced, Montebourg argued that the prior was a “necessity” and claimed that he “challenged the theory of the end of work.” He also criticized a perceived European obsession with austerity, condemning it as the cause of the country’s persistently high rates of unemployment and dismal economic growth, promising to “liberate the French from European-imposed austerity.”^[35] He also pledged during the campaign that he would not comply with EU deficit rules, in contrast to Valls, embark upon an “economic patriotism” (described as protectionism by some observers), reserve 80 percent of government contracts for French small businesses, reinstate border controls, repeal the El Khomri jobs bill, defend small domestic businesses, warn that he might engage in a trade war against China, and support a €30 billion infrastructure plan.^[36]^[37]

Montebourg’s months-long position in second place, however, was challenged by a surge of support for Benoît Hamon, with the primary becoming a three-man race between Valls, Hamon, and Montebourg by mid-January. Hamon’s strongly left-wing program of legalizing cannabis, taxing robots to fund a universal basic income, and to reducing the 35-hour workweek to 32 hours, attracted many left-wing voters disillusioned by the Socialists’ turn toward business-friendly policies, championed under Hollande’s presidency by the likes of Valls and Macron. The former education minister’s late rise was likened to that of François Fillon in the primary of the centre-right Republicans party, his rise propelled by his championing of left-wing values and vision of a society that spends less time working, enjoys higher pay, and emphasizes the importance GDP growth less. Hamon has also decried “neoconservatives” and “even those on the left” who wished to restrict the rights of French Muslims, a less-than-subtle denunciation of Valls’s hardline stance on immigration.^[17] His proposal for a universal income has been his signature policy; in the final primary debate, he insisted that it “creates work” and “allows employees to reduce their workdays, and it can further contract and eradicate poverty,” and post-debate polls indicated left-wing voters consistently viewed Hamon as being the most convincing candidate.^[37]

Three debates were held before the first round of the primary. The first, syndicated by TF1, Public Sénat, LCI, RTL, and co-organized by L’Observateur, aired at 21:00 CET on 12 January, moderated by Gilles Bouleau, Élizabeth Martichoux, and Matthieu Croissandeau; the second, by BFM TV, RMC, and I-TV, aired at 18:00 CET on 15 January, moderated by Ruth Elkrief, Laurence Ferrari, and Laurent Neumann; the third, by France 2, Europe 1, LCP, TV5Monde, and regional daily newspapers, aired at 21:00 CET on 19 January, moderated by David Pujadas, Léa Salamé, and Fabien Namias. Should no candidate secure a majority in the first round of the primary, an additional debate will be held before the second round, syndicated between France Inter, TF1, and France 2 at 21:00 CET on 25 January, moderated by Gilles Bouleau, David Pujadas, and Alexandra Bensaid. The first debate attracted 3.83 million viewers, representing an audience share of 18.3%;^[38] the second 1.75 million, representing a share of 7.9%;^[39] and the third 3.07 million, a share of 15%.^[40]

First round[edit]

Hamon came on top in the first round of the primary, followed by Valls; as neither of the two secured more than 50% of the vote, a second round will be held on 29 January. Montebourg, relegated to third place, conceded defeat and pledged to vote for Hamon in the second round. Peillon came fourth, de Rugy fifth, Pinel sixth, and Bennahmias last. Of these four candidates, Pinel backed Valls in the second round; Peillon did did not endorse but encouraged voters to mobilize; and de Rugy also chose not to endorse immediately afterwards, hoping to meet the top two contenders on 23 January to decide. Only 7,350 polling stations were open during the primary, compared to 9,425 in the 2011 primary and 10,228 in the primary of the right.^[41] Meanwhile, Bennahmias, with just over 1% of the primary vote, did not endorse any candidate and expressed his intent to announce a decision on 25 January.^[42]

An overnight update of the official primary results published 10:00 CET on 23 January added approximately three hundred thousand votes, without any change in the vote share of any candidate, arousing suspicions among observers and the French press. Two hours later, an update to the total of votes obtained by Sylvia Pinel was published, increasing her vote share by 0.01% (i.e., 160 additional votes). However, the total number of votes for Pinel increased by 161, more than the total number of overall votes, with changes to no other candidates. The results were believed to have been manipulated into inflate the apparent turnout, which was low compared to past primaries.^[43] The PS initially attributed the results to a “bug”, but later conceded that it had been a result of “human error.” However, the French press remained skeptical, noting the improbability of a nearly-identical 28% increase in votes for all seven candidates.^[44] There was also additional confusion, even prior to reports about the potential manipulation of vote totals, surrounding the number of polling stations open (which, according to PS, is fewer than 7,350 because many were merged with others) and the vagueness of PS officials on primary turnout, compounded by the fact that no comprehensive public record of primary results was published.^[42]

Candidates[edit]

Candidate (name and age)^[45]

Political offices

Supporters

Jean-Luc Bennahmias^[46]
(62)

President of the Democratic Front
(since 2014)

[show]Other offices

Pauline Delpech,^[47] François-Michel Lambert,^[48] Sanseverino^[49]

Benoît Hamon^[50]
(49)

MP for Yvelines
(2012 and since 2014)

[show]Other offices

[show]Support

Arnaud Montebourg^[57]^[58]
(54)

Minister of the Economy, Production Recovery and the Digital Sector
(2012–2014)

[show]Other offices

[show]Support

Vincent Peillon^[20]
(56)

MEP
(2004–12 and since 2014)

[show]Other offices

[show]Support

Sylvia Pinel^[71]
(39)

President of the Radical Party of the Left
(since 2016)
MP for Tarn-et-Garonne
(2007–2012 and since 2016)

[show]Other offices

Jean-Michel Baylet,^[51] Thierry Braillard,^[72] Jeanine Dubié,^[73] Paul Giacobbi,^[74] Annick Girardin,^[51]Françoise Laborde,^[75] Dominique Orliac,^[76] Virginie Rozière,^[77]Jean-Claude Requier,^[76] Raymond Vall,^[76] Jean Zuccarelli.^[74]

François de Rugy^[78]^[21]
(43)

President of the Ecologist Party
(since 2015)
MP for Loire-Atlantique
(since 2007)

[show]Other offices

Éric Alauzet,^[51] Aline Archimbaud,^[51] Christophe Cavard,^[51] Emmanuelle Cosse,^[51]Véronique Massonneau,^[51]Barbara Pompili^[51]

Manuel Valls^[19]
(54)

MP for Essonne
(2002–12 and since 2017)
Prime Minister of France
(2014–16)

[show]Other offices

[show]Support

Withdrawn[edit]

Former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, who refused to participate in the Socialist primary and running for president as an independent under the banner of En Marche!

Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, Senator^[22]
Marc Jutier, PS member; joined Jean-Luc Mélenchon‘s Unsubmissive France^[81]

Declined[edit]

Martine Aubry, mayor of Lille, former Minister of Social Affairs, Minister of Labour, Employment and Vocational Training, Socialist leader, and 2012 presidential candidate^[82]
Matthias Fekl, Trade Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development^[83]
Annick Girardin, PRG member and Minister of the Civil Service; endorsed the candidacy of Sylvia Pinel^[84]
Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris; endorsed the candidacy of Vincent Peillon^[85]
François Hollande, incumbent President of France^[86]
Ségolène Royal, 2007 Socialist Party presidential candidate, incumbent Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy^[87]
Christiane Taubira, former Minister of Justice^[87]
Marisol Touraine, Minister of Social Affairs and Health^[88]
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister of Education, Higher Education and Research; endorsed the candidacy of Manuel Valls^[89]

Refused to participate[edit]

Emmanuel Macron, former Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, and founder of En Marche!, standing as an independent in the presidential election^[90]
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Left Front MEP, former Minister of Vocational Education and Senator, standing as a far-left candidate in the presidential election^[91]

Opinion polls[edit]

First round[edit]

Poll source	Date(s) administered	Sample size
			François Hollande	Manuel Valls	Arnaud Montebourg	Benoît Hamon	Vincent Peillon	Sylvia Pinel	François de Rugy	Jean-Luc Bennahmias	Non-candidates
			François Hollande	Manuel Valls	Arnaud Montebourg	Benoît Hamon	Vincent Peillon	Sylvia Pinel	François de Rugy	Jean-Luc Bennahmias	Martine Aubry	Gérard Filoche	Pierre Larrouturou	Marie-Noëlle Lienemann	Emmanuel Macron	Ségolène Royal	Christiane Taubira

Elabe	20–21 Jun 2016	955	32%	–	22%	13%	–	–	2%	–	–	–	–	5%	23%	–	–
Elabe	20–21 Jun 2016	955	–	27%	26%	13%	–	–	3%	–	–	–	–	5%	22%	–	–
Ipsos	1–4 Jul 2016	6% of 15814	37%	–	32%	13%	–	2%	10%	–	–	–	–	6%	–	–	–
			40%	–	38%	–	–	3%	11%	–	–	–	–	8%	–	–	–
			–	35%	32%	13%	–	2%	11%	–	–	–	–	7%	–	–	–
			–	–	30%	13%	–	2%	11%	–	–	–	–	6%	38%	–	–
BVA	8–10 Jul 2016	936	11%	5%	9%	3%	–	–	–	–	18%	3%	–	1%	13%	6%	11%
Ifop*	12–15 Jul 2016	2000	31%	–	31%	20%	–	–	3%	–	–	–	–	15%	–	–	–
Ifop*	31 Aug — 2 Sep 2016	899	32%	–	30%	18%	–	–	4%	3%	–	–	–	13%	–	–	–
Ipsos	9–18 Sep 2016	1017	43%	–	31%	16%	–	–	1%	1%	–	4%	–	4%	–	–	–
Ipsos	9–18 Sep 2016	1017	–	41%	32%	16%	–	–	1%	1%	–	5%	–	4%	–	–	–
BVA	13–20 Sep 2016	4% of 9255	43%	–	33%	14%	–	1%	2%	2%	–	3%	–	2%	–	–	–
BVA	13–20 Sep 2016	4% of 9255	–	44%	31%	14%	–	1%	1.5%	2%	–	4%	–	2.5%	–	–	–
BVA	3–13 Nov 2016	4% of 9206	40%	–	34%	13%	–	3%	2%	1%	–	3%	–	4%	–	–	–
			27%	–	24%	11%	–	2%	1%	2%	–	2%	–	3%	28%	–	–
			–	44%	32%	13%	–	3.5%	1%	1%	–	2.5%	–	3%	–	–	–
			–	34%	31%	11%	–	4%	1%	1%	–	2%	–	2%	24%	–	–
François Hollande announces he will not seek a second term (1 December 2016)
Ifop*	28 Nov — 1 Dec 2016	678	–	38%	27%	14%	–	–	5%	1%	–	6%	–	9%	–	–	–
Ifop*	2–3 Dec 2016	542	–	45%	25%	14%	–	–	2%	1%	–	5%	–	8%	–	–	–
Harris	5–7 Dec 2016	541	–	45%	28%	11%	–	–	1%	1%	–	6%	3%	5%	–	–	–
Start of the official campaign (17 December 2016)
* poll of preferred nominee among left-wing sympathizers, not voting intention

Polls conducted after the certification of candidates

Poll source	Date(s) administered	Sample size	Manuel Valls	Arnaud Montebourg	Benoît Hamon	Vincent Peillon	Sylvia Pinel	François de Rugy	Jean-Luc Bennahmias
Poll source	Date(s) administered	Sample size
Harris	2–4 Jan 2017	478	43%	25%	22%	7%	2%	1%	<0.5%
Ifop*	3–5 Jan 2017	705	36%	24%	21%	9%	7%	2%	1%
Kantar Sofres – OnePoint	3–6 Jan 2017	488	36%	23%	21%	10%	6%	2%	2%
Elabe*	8–11 Jan 2017	1373	31%	24%	24%	9%	5%	2%	1%
OpinionWay	9–11 Jan 2017	453	40%	21%	29%	7%	1%	1%	1%
Elabe*	11–13 Jan 2017	1542	31%	24%	25%	8%	5%	3%	1%
First televised debate (12 January 2017)
Odoxa*	12–13 Jan 2017	297	30%	23%	21%	9%	6%	3%	2%
Harris**	12–13 Jan 2017	1002	23%	23%	27%	10%	5%	0%	0%
BVA	13–16 Jan 2017	543	34%	26%	27%	7%	3%	2%	1%
Second televised debate (15 January 2017)
Harris**	15–16 Jan 2017	915	26%	22%	24%	7%	3%	0%	1%
Elabe*	15–18 Jan 2017	1407	28%	24%	28%	5%	5%	3%	3%
OpinionWay	16–18 Jan 2017	536	37%	24%	28%	5%	3%	1%	2%
Third televised debate (19 January 2017)
Harris**	19–20 Jan 2017	954	26%	29%	33%	6%	1%	0%	0%
Results	22 Jan 2017	–	31.11%	17.52%	36.35%	6.85%	1.98%	3.88%	1.01%
* poll of preferred nominee among left-wing sympathizers, not voting intention ** poll of preferred nominee among those certain to vote in the primary, not voting intention

Second round[edit]

Poll source	Date(s) administered	Sample size

			Hamon	Valls
Harris	2–4 Jan 2017	478	43%	57%
Kantar Sofres – OnePoint	3–6 Jan 2017	488	50%	50%
OpinionWay	9–11 Jan 2017	453	47%	53%
BVA	13–16 Jan 2017	543	52%	48%
OpinionWay	16–18 Jan 2017	536	49%	51%

[show]Hypothetical polling

Results[edit]

e • d Summary of the Socialist Party 22 and 29 January 2017 presidential primary
Candidates		Parties		1st round		2nd round
Candidates		Parties		Votes	%	Votes	%
	Benoît Hamon	Socialist Party	PS	582,014	36.35
	Manuel Valls	Socialist Party	PS	498,114	31.11
	Arnaud Montebourg	Socialist Party	PS	280,519	17.52
	Vincent Peillon	Socialist Party	PS	109,678	6.85
	François de Rugy	Ecologist Party	PÉ	62,124	3.88
	Sylvia Pinel	Radical Party of the Left	PRG	31,703	1.98
	Jean-Luc Bennahmias	Democratic Front	FD	16,172	1.01

Valid votes				1,580,324	98.70
Spoilt and null votes				20,815	1.30
Total				1,601,139	100%

List of candidates by High Authority.Source: [1]

Non-candidates[edit]

Twenty-four applications were filed with the High Authority for the left-wing primary, but not all were made public; of these, several were disqualified for not securing enough sponsors under the rules of the primary.

Gérard Filoche, former labor inspector, militant communist^[92]
Sidi Hamada-Hamidou, member of the Radical Party of the Left (PRG)^[93]
Maxime Legrand, opposition councillor in Poissy^[94]
Régis Passerieux, candidate of the PS’s Christian faction^[95]
Fabien Verdier, Socialist Party member, advisor to two cabinet ministers and former town councillor^[96]

Several other individuals filed applications which were rejected as they were not members of PS, UDE, PE, or FD.

Bastien Faudot, spokesman of the Citizen and Republican Movement (MRC)^[97]
Pierre Larrouturou, former co-president of Nouvelle Donne^[98]
Sébastien Nadot, nominee of the Movement of Progressives^[99]

France Left Primary: who are the main frontrunners?

Posted on January 24, 2017 by jazzy800

French Left Primary: “socialists in real trouble, fighting for survival” ahead of presidential race

Posted on January 24, 2017 by jazzy800

Miscellaneous left

Posted on December 14, 2015 by jazzy800

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Miscellaneous left (divers gauche, DVG) in France refers to left-wing candidates who are not members of a large party. They either include small left-wing parties or dissidentsexpelled from their parties for running against their party’s candidate. Numerous divers gauche candidates are elected at a local level, and a smaller number at the national level.

	Palin Smith on IN FINLAND, parents of pre-tee…
	Hillary About To Be… on Hillary About To Be Indicted F…
	glaziers canterbury on US Department of Defence (USAM…
	Bobby Marcum on Donald Trump’s 66th Floo…
	Vanessa Y on Donald Trump’s 66th Floo…

Alex Infohub

Investigative journalism

Category Archives: Miscellaneous left

French presidential election, 2017

Results

First round

Background

Candidates

Non-candidates

Socialist Party (PS)

Democratic Movement (MoDem)

Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)

Primaries

The Republicans (LR)

Socialist Party (PS)

Fillon affair (Penelopegate)

Other incidents

First round

Debates

Electorate

Opinion polls

See also

French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2017

Background[edit]

Candidacies[edit]

Campaign[edit]

First round[edit]

Candidates[edit]

Withdrawn[edit]

Declined[edit]

Refused to participate[edit]

Opinion polls[edit]

First round[edit]

Second round[edit]

Results[edit]

Non-candidates[edit]

France Left Primary: who are the main frontrunners?

French Left Primary: “socialists in real trouble, fighting for survival” ahead of presidential race

Miscellaneous left