After years of wrestling with poor electoral results and dwindling political importance, France’s social democrats have a chance to get back to the centre stage ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Emmanuel Macron seized the centre-left electorate in 2017, when he first ran for the presidency. The same year, the French Socialist Party only managed to secure 6.36% in the French presidential election, and only about 30 MPs were elected.
A difficult political arena
“The presidential elections exposed the crisis of the Socialist Party (PS), with a candidate, Emmanuel Macron, who came from the centre-left. His departure from the social democrat family contributed to the fragmentation of the left,” Ania Skrzypek, research director at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), told EURACTIV.
The French centre-left is now trapped between Macron’s centrist movement and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left La France Insoumise. The latter completed the process of absorbing the left-wing electorate in the 2022 presidential election, where PS achieved its lowest ever score in a presidential election, a meagre 1.75%.
The Socialist party rebounded slightly in the 2022 parliamentary elections as part of the alliance of left-wing forces (NUPES), built around Mélenchon, again securing around 30 seats in parliament.
The ‘radicality’ paradox of the French Greens
The left-wing alliance NUPES, which finished neck-and-neck with President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble! in the first parliamentary election round, has reinforced the view that French Greens are too radical to govern. The reality, however, is much more nuanced.
However, Renaissance MEP Sandro Gozi – a former Italian MP and cabinet member for the Italian Partito Democratico – expressed his surprise at the French socialists’ decision to “ally with La France Insoumise (LFI)” in this regard.
This is “a big mistake”, he told EURACTIV, because “La France Insoumise’s stances have nothing to do with social democracy on many issues: Europe, international policy, some social policy choices, secularism”.
“The social democrats, now that they have their own group, can demonstrate their differences” with LFI, and thus continue to exist, Gozi added.
FEPS’ Skrzypek argued that following the pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, voters have returned to values that characterise social democracy, “such as solidarity, public services, welfare, the state, employment prospects”.
Responsibility, an asset for the centre-left
One element that distinguishes the French socialist party from other more radical left-wing forces, such as Mélenchon’s LFI, is its history of lengthy periods in government.
Speaking to EURACTIV, left-wing political scientist Rémi Lefebvre, a lecturer at the University of Lille in France, pointed out that “if Mélenchon comes to power, he cannot carry out his policies within the existing European framework. This would create an institutional crisis,” he said.
This is a matter that may cause concern not only to European partners but also to voters, added Skrzypek.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a Eurosceptic in many of his approaches to European issues. And with Macron having lost his dominant position in Parliament, voters will be expecting a serious pro-European agenda” – which could therefore come from the “soc-dem”, she said.
The social democrats do have an upper hand over the other political groups on the left, namely the “predictability” of their policies and actions, explained Skrzypek. This factor has contributed to the revival of centre-left parties in several European countries, including Spain and Poland, she added.
Embodying social democracy
The main issue in France – due to the quirks of its electoral system and the way the presidential election is largely based on the personality of the candidates – remains to find the right person to embody this renewed social democracy.
Théo Verdier, co-director of the European Observatory at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, also cited the example of Spain, where “after a curative period of opposition and in light of very strong competition from Podemos, the Spanish Socialist Party was able to revive itself on the basis of representation and through its structure of regional executives and locally elected officials”.
A similar view is expressed by Lefebvre, who argued that the social democrats need to find “a candidate who can win” and appeal to “a left-wing electorate that is not in tune with Mélenchon’s radicalism, who is about to step aside” – at the age of 70, after 35 years in national politics.
His withdrawal could open up political space to the left of the social democrats, but also in the centre.
“Macron cannot stand for re-election in 2027 and his potential successors, who are mainly coming from the centre-right, will tear each other apart,” said Verdier, referring to Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe and current Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.
“The cards have been reshuffled,” Verdier added. The window of opportunity is narrow but it is there.
**Charles Szumski contributed to this article
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic and Benjamin Fox]
French left is still divided on Europe
The French left, now the strongest opposition facing Emmanuel Macron’s presidential majority in this year’s legislative elections set for Sunday (19 June), remains divided regarding issues related to the European Union.
Source: euractiv.com
