Christiane Taubira, winner of the French Popular Elementary

Christiane Taubira won the French popular by-election this Sunday. The candidate, former Minister of Justice of the Government of François Hollande, She was one of the favorites and is considered by some on the left as the foresighted woman who will manage to remove the progressive space of exclusion.

Between Thursday and Sunday in France the People’s Primary. More from 465 000 people could vote in this internal elections of the left, which gets on the nerves of the leaders of France Insumisa, Socialist Party (PS) and Europa Ecología Los Verdes, by putting the names of their candidates to the vote without their approval.

Taubira achieved the best result, ahead of the ecologist Yannick Jadot, the left Jean-Luc Melenchon, the MEP Pierre Larrouturou and the socialist Anne Hidalgo. “Thank you for your trust,” Taubira, a former socialist minister of justice, told supporters in Paris. “We want a united left, we want a standing left, We have a long way to go. ” He said. The purpose of the vote is for the winner to win the support of the other candidates, to create a united left bloc to confront President Emmanuel Macron in the April election.

controversial choice

But the primary, launched by political activists, including environmental, feminist and anti-racist groups, has been hit by several setbacks. The biggest of all was rejection manifested by the candidates of weight like Mélenchon, Jadot or Hidalgo, mayor of Paris. “For me, the primary page turned long ago,” Jadot said Saturday, while Mélenchon called the initiative a “joke.”

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Taubira, 69, was already the best-placed candidate and had already stated that she would accept the verdict of the primary. According to the polls, all left-wing candidates would be eliminated in the first round of the April presidential election. Macron, who has not yet declared himself a candidate for re-election, is according to the polls the favorite, followed by the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

Opinion polls, however, have warned that the political landscape remains very volatile and the outcome of the election remains very difficult to predict.