Buried, the grand primary of the “Front populaire 2027” scheduled for October 11. In its place, the PS and its allies must choose among five personalities, while several candidacies are being built outside. At the center of the game, the same question remains: what to do with Jean-Luc Mélenchon?
“It is a great day for the left, for the ecologists. We have taken an oath.” Olivier Faure does not skimp on phrases this Wednesday in July 2025. In Bagneux, in Hauts-de-Seine, the head of the Socialist Party (PS) has just reached an agreement with several left-wing political leaders for a joint candidacy to the presidential election. “It’s a little moving”, says his ecologist counterpart, Marine Tondelier, a participant in this initiative, as well as Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin, who notes: “We will have a common program and a common candidate, that’s not nothing.” Without Jean-Luc Mélenchon, one could hear it, the leader of La France insoumise (LFI) having planned, as usual, to go it alone in the 2027 challenge.
The matter formalized in January of last year, with the announcement of a primary, scheduled for October 11, 2026. The initiative, named “Front populaire 2027”, aims to perpetuate the spirit of the united left that secured the unexpected success of the New Popular Front (NFP) in the early legislative elections of 2024, following the surprise dissolution of the National Assembly. Lucie Castets, who had then been designated as the NFP candidate for Matignon, embodies this continuity as the spokesperson for the primary. But at the end of the summer of 2026, a year after the “Bayeux oath,” the person in question has somewhat become disillusioned. “The return to work is hard, hard”, she confides. In the meantime, the initiative has been crushed by another primary, organized by the PS, whose first round is set for October 9 and 10. RIP the unitary primary of October 11, therefore.
Mélenchon or not
“In fact, this primary has been buried by the approach of the Socialist Party (PS)”, accuses former MEP François Thiollet, national secretary of the Ecologists. From the start, Raphaël Glucksmann expressed his refusal to participate in the primary of the “Front populaire 2027”, preferring to negotiate with the socialists the conditions of another primary. But the October 11 primary also had its opponents within the PS. Boris Vallaud, head of the PS deputies, thus opposed the process supported by Olivier Faure, deemed too narrow without Raphaël Glucksmann. The PS primary rules were ultimately negotiated with the movement of the latter, Place publique, to which the small party Gauche républicaine et socialiste (GRS) represented in the process by its founder, the deputy Emmanuel Maurel.
Changing primaries, but to what end? The two ballots do not quite carry the same political meaning. The “Front populaire 2027” was to bring forth a common non-Melenchonist left candidacy, with a mandate to try to “do better” than Jean-Luc Mélenchon, according to the formula of the LFI leader. “Choose 2027” must settle a more precise question: which left to oppose to the one who has already announced his candidacy? The first debate between the five candidates, this Wednesday, September 23 on LCI, confirmed: more than their programmatic divergences, it is their relationship to LFI that draws the main fault line of this primary. On one side, Raphaël Glucksmann built his political offer on breaking with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom he notably accused of using the “worst codes of the far right” by playing on the sound of Jewish names, including his own. “In the second round of the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would not defeat Marine Le Pen. Is that the risk we want to impose on France and on the left?”, asks Sacha Houlié, deputy from Vienne close to the leader of Place publique.
On the other hand, Olivier Faure is one of the architects of the alliance struck with LFI during the 2024 legislative elections. “It will be up to the winner of the primary to define the strategy of gathering. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a competitor, but not an enemy. Olivier wants to rally around him to change things”, supports Socialist deputy Arthur Delaporte. A third path is advocated by Ségolène Royal: to engage with LFI while presenting herself as the antithesis of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “Ségolène Royal wants to embody France the calm and the just order,” argues Luc Carvounas, socialist mayor of Alfortville, in Val-de-Marne. “We know her, she is experienced and capable of speaking to the popular France.”
Avoiding the irreconcilable
Remaining to cross the primary without it producing more divisions than it is meant to resolve. The first snag at its outset, at the close of candidacies on September 15: Philippe Brun, the deputy from Eure, who was to participate in the poll, was excluded after his suspension from the party following accusations of violence made by a former aide. The judiciary has since rejected his request for readmission, in first instance and then on appeal. Philippe Brun denounces “a maneuver masterminded by the right-hand men of the two main leaders of the Socialist Party”.
And then there is Ségolène Royal. If, in Drag Race, the roast is practiced with benevolence, in politics, it tends toward scorched earth. The former presidential candidate does not hesitate to deliver deadly jabs: she notably described Raphaël Glucksmann as a “political intern” and accuses him of preparing an alliance with the center and the right to block LFI.
Once the quarrels are resolved, there remains the question of whether people will vote. The primaries of 2011 and 2017 respectively gathered 1.66 million and 2.6 million voters, giving their winners legitimacy far exceeding the party apparatus that organized them. This time, no one expects such mobilization. And the participation demanded from non-members, fixed at 15 euros at the standard rate, adds an obstacle regularly pointed out by the candidates themselves.
Hollande, Pigasse, Polony…
“Less than 100,000 participants would be terrible for the candidate. Around 300,000 to 400,000, that could create a dynamic”, estimates Luc Carvounas. The objective seems ambitious: on the eve of the first debate, the president of the primary’s organizing commission, Patrick Mennucci, spoke of an electorate of around 50,000 people, likely to reach 100,000 thanks to televised debates. Lurking in the wings, the last Socialist president, François Hollande, has already begun to turn this mobilization into a test. “The primary, not only risks dividing, but will not have the momentum we have known in other eras”, declared at the end of August the deputy from Corrèze who awaits his moment, having published this fall a programmatic book, Unir.
And even a successful primary would not put an end to dispersion. On the left of the PS, François Ruffin continues to express presidential ambitions, regretting being left out of the new social-democratic process, even as Olivier Faure argued for its expansion in early September. Raphaël Glucksmann opposed it. “If we fail to reach an understanding, Marine Le Pen goes to the Élysée”, exclaims Sophie de la Taille, deputy from Val-de-Marne who supports the Somme deputy. “This primary aims to declare the existence of the governing-left and to show our credibility, not the reverse…”, replies with a hint of mischief Sacha Houlié.
Absent from the primary, the Ecologists nevertheless do not escape the dilemma it traverses: what to do with Jean-Luc Mélenchon? After the failure of the unitary primary they defended, they postponed their choice to December. By then, Marine Tondelier remains their candidate and the leadership negotiates with all left-wing forces. Internally, the options are already embodied: Sandrine Rousseau advocates for a rally to LFI, while Yannick Jadot has joined Raphaël Glucksmann. “We want to open discussions with everyone but if we disappear, ecology disappears from the political debate”, warns François Thiollet. By general consensus, the situation on the left will be stabilized at the beginning of 2027. Provided that other candidacies do not yet come to rebalance the cards. Businessman Matthieu Pigasse and columnist Natacha Polony, in particular, are also sharpening their weapons for 2027. A year after swearing to find a “common program and a common candidate,” the left has not yet finished counting its candidates.
