Critics continue to rain down on the popular Primary. And this time the charge came from François Hollande. “A note is not a vote, that’s the major point” thus judged the former socialist president on Monday. According to him, the vote won by Christiane Taubira “does not change anything” and the left remains deadlocked.
“Was the popular primary the right method and the right time? Was it the right method when candidates did not want to attend and were invited against their will, “he also wondered during a conference at Science. PoParis.
The positive points of the primary of… 2011
For him, this method “necessarily deprives the victorious person of the legitimacy of this process”, recalling that he had participated in a primary on the left in 2011 with “three million participants” and with “debates which made it possible to see clearly” between the different candidates (Martine Aubry, Ségolène Royal, Arnaud Montebourg, Manuel Valls and Jean-Michel Baylet). Similarly, the winner of the 2012 presidential election believes that this primary came “too late” and that it should have been preceded by “programmatic work”.
But above all, “for there to be a dynamic – and it is desired –, for there to be a union – and it is desirable – there must be a vote, not a note. That’s the major point, ”he said. According to him, “this is why, beyond the people and, beyond the sincerity of the participants, this popular Primary does not change anything. We are in the same impasse, there are still as many candidates and there is no political line ”.
“If I have a message to pass on, it’s not about the people that the debate should focus but on the political line” which is “not simply a series of measures” but which must serve to “understand what we want to succeed together”.
“A former president can be a candidate”
Again questioned about a possible presidential candidacy, the ex-president replied with a new pirouette: “I would say that a former president can be a candidate. Nothing prevents it… I am talking about the law… I even know former presidents who wanted to be candidates and who did not manage to do so”, he quipped in allusion to Nicolas Sarkozy, of whom he was victorious in 2012.
Last Tuesday, his entourage denied rumors of a possible candidacy of the former president for the legislative elections in Corrèze, specifying that he could speak in mid-February on the situation in France, in a context “serious enough” to for a former president to “come out of his reserve”.