[update below] [2nd update below] [3rd update below]
Saturday was Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s big Paris rally, yesterday was Benoît Hamon’s. The venue was the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in the 12th arrondissement along the Seine, formally called the AccorHotels Arena since last year, as the corporate branding of sports stadiums and arenas—and Anglicizing their names—has now come to France (how I hate that; yet another American import to be lamented). It was said last week that this was a make-or-break event for the Hamon campaign, that he absolutely had to fill the arena and have the event be seen as a success, or else. The big turnout at Mélenchon’s rally at the République only raised the stakes, as the two men are in a neck-and-neck contest to finish ahead of the other—and, for Hamon, to obtain a respectable 1st round score (in the mid to high teens). As the Bercy arena has a maximum capacity—of some 20,000, plus a few thousand outside watching on the big screen—at least there wouldn’t be a numbers game or dispute over that.
The rally, in short, was a spectacular success. First, the arena was packed and with several thousand outside. Second, the ambiance was survolté (enthusiastic, excited), in good part thanks to the large contingent of young people—mainly from the MJS—in the arena’s pit (where I was). Third, Hamon gave a great speech. He spoke for almost an hour-and-a-half and was very good throughout (to watch it, go here). Unlike Mélenchon the day before, he targeted his opponents on numerous occasions—Marine Le Pen, François Fillon, and (particularly) Emmanuel Macron, rarely Mélenchon—though without mentioning any by name (except Marine LP once). I suppose that’s normal for a candidate in his position—and particularly aiming at Macron, as a sizable number of center-left voters are undecided between the two. There was nothing mean or below-the-belt. On a host of issues—notably immigration—he hit the right buttons and had a number of great lines. E.g.
Je sais que l’histoire de France est un bloc, comme la Révolution. Mais je ne confonds pas la Révolution et la Restauration, les communards et les Versaillais, Barrès et Zola, les dreyfusards et les anti-dreyfusards, je ne confonds pas l’histoire de Fernand Braudel et celle de Charles Maurras…
Yes!
And this
Comment aurions-nous construit la France sans les Polonais, les Italiens, les Portugais, les Marocains, les Sénégalais, etc?… Angela Merkel a parlé d’une voix d’or quand elle a dit ce qu’il fallait dire au nom même du projet européen pour les réfugiés…Vous pouvez être le prochain Thomas Pesquet, le prochain Omar Sy, la prochaine Najat Vallaud-Belkacem…
Najat V-B was indeed present in the V.I.P. area and took the mike during the warm-up, as did Christiane Taubira and others. But one noted the PS heavyweights who were not present, and whose names were not uttered once: Manuel Valls, Ségolène Royal, Stéphane Le Foll, Julien Dray… Hamon did take care at one point to positively mention François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve, and Jean-Yves Le Drian, which provoked applause.
There is so much that was good in Hamon’s speech. E.g. March 19th is the anniversary of two tragic events. One is the 2012 murder of the Jewish schoolchildren in Toulouse by Mohammed Merah. Hamon marked the occasion by evoking their names and asking for a minute of silence in their memory, plus all the other victims of terrorism (soldiers in Montauban, Charlie Hebdo-Hyper Cacher, November 13th). C’était fort. The other event is the formal end, in 1962, of the seven-and-a-half year Algerian war of independence, in which so many lives were lost, shattered, or upended. Hamon’s used that one to call for a new era of fraternity between the French and Algerian peoples. C’est bien.
Hamon is also the only candidate—probably excepting Macron—who will trash Trump and Putin in the same sentence—and with the audience (me included) booing at the mention of both names.
To see my photos with commentary, go to the album here (for the comments, click on the photo, then the info icon on the top right, and scroll with the arrow).
Two more things. During Hamon’s speech, my wife—who was watching it live on BFM—sent me a text message saying how impressed she was with what Hamon was saying, plus marveling that he was doing so without notes. I replied that he had a teleprompter. It was indeed the first time I’ve personally seen a teleprompter at a French political rally. Another American import. I doubt anyone noticed it or even knew what it was. No harm in that. It’s hard for even skilled orators to flawlessly pull off the 90-minute speech of their lives without something written in front of them. Most French politicos in such situations read written texts, which makes for boring, plodding speeches (e.g. Sarkozy, at his big April 2007 rally at Bercy—which I watched on the big screen outside—looked down at his text the entire time, almost never making eye contact with the audience; what a dud). Marine Le Pen, who delivers a good speech, was constantly looking at down at the lectern at her 2012 rally at the Zénith. On Saturday, Mélenchon, who’s a natural orator, had sheets of paper, which he glanced at occasionally while walking the stage and looking directly at the audience. The only French politicos I’ve seen who can speak for literally hours with no notes—who pace the stage with mike in hand—are Jean-Marie Le Pen and Philippe de Villiers. But they’re showmen, so thus a minority.
The second thing. I’ve announced to all and sundry over the past couple of months that I’ve decided to vote strategically for Emmanuel Macron in the 1st round, as there are two overriding imperatives in this election: (a) to avoid, if at all possible, a 2nd round face-off between Le Pen and Fillon, and (b) to avoid at all costs a Le Pen victory. As it is, objectively speaking, most unlikely that any Socialist candidate could make it to the 2nd round—and whose chances of victory, in that event, would be worryingly uncertain against Marine LP—that leaves Macron as the only candidate who can save France from both a discredited, increasingly reactionary Fillon and the nightmarish catastrophe of Marine LP in the Élysée. And I’m fine with Macron, who’s an interesting, worthy candidate. But after yesterday’s rally I’m rethinking my position. I don’t care about the Parti Socialiste or—with the exception of Najat V-B and maybe a couple of others—those in its V.I.P. section yesterday (see my photos), but, to repeat, I was very impressed with Benoît Hamon, and on form and substance equally. But of equal importance was the crowd, and particularly the younger generation—and which included my 23-year-old daughter and several of her friends. In France, these are my people. There are the usual disagreements on this or that issue but I relate to and identify with them. In America, they’re liberal/progressive Democratic Party voters. And Hamon is the best possible candidate the moderate French left could have fielded in this election. So if, on April 23rd, it looks fairly certain that Macron will proceed to the 2nd round to face Marine LP, I will cast my ballot for Hamon.
UPDATE: Arthur Goldhammer, in an article in The American Prospect dated March 20th, assesses the visions of the five leading presidential candidates, beginning with a critique of Hamon’s economic program.
2nd UPDATE: Art Goldhammer, writing on his blog, has an assessment of Monday night’s debate, with which I very largely agree.
3rd UPDATE: France Inter political editorialist Thomas Legrand offered an insightful analysis of Monday’s debate, “Premier débat, avec des alliances et des oppositions à géométrie variable!”
Interesting. I was impressed by Queen Taubira. I was impressed by Hamon just as you were. I was also impressed by the number of young people and the high voltage energy.
It has been a very long time that a socialist gathering turned me in my “bon public” mood. This to some extent felt like family. You know what to expect from each member. And yet you are happy to go home afterwards.
There is a world between a fine speech, a well organized meeting and the job to be done. Not mentionning that Hamon spoke to his people not to all of France… Quotes of glorious figures from the socialist glorious past don’t arouse me anymore nor will they get the undecided to tilt in the right direction. I myself have already listened over the years more than enough to the ritual, countless but mandatory invocations of Jaurès and Blum and Mitterrand, etc… They slide on me like water on duck feathers.
Hamon still has to make a difference tonight for a much larger audience in this fucked up show “The -Political- Voice” staged by TF1.
I understand your feelings about April 23rd. I am certainly not a Macron fanatic, I still don’t feel comfortable with the guy but neither am I a Hamon groupie. So I also and still count myself among the undecided. An undecided voter fed up to be cornered into the systematic blackmail of “voter utile” to “barrer la route” etc.
I spent some time this week-end checking Jean Lassale’s program and website, guess what, I kinda like that man, despite the trip he made to Damascus though.
Hamon was indeed speaking to the faithful and not to the totality of the French nation. It was a partisan political rally to whip up his supporters and impress his own camp, which, as we know, is not entirely on board with his candidacy. As I wrote above, it was a big success.
As to whether or not it will jump start his campaign, on verra. In a Facebook exchange yesterday, Arthur Goldhammer and political scientist Stathis Kalyvas sought to dampen my rekindled enthusiasm for Hamon and convince me that a vote utile for Macron was still imperative, that the stakes are simply too high. They may be right. So I am officially in the undecided column, hesitating between a 1st round vote de cœur for Hamon and one de raison for Macron. And I’ll likely remain that way till the eve of the vote.
As for Jean Lassalle, I decided that he was a complete nutcase after his preposterous hunger strike a dozen years back. Every self-respecting French presidential campaign has its hurluberlu candidate. This one has three.
Marianne for best “hurluberlu” from Béarn goes to Jean Lassale who couldn’t attend the Marianne awards due to a hunger strike of his ewe flock.
I wasn’t at the meeting, being far away from Paris, so I won’t comment on Hamon’s rethoretical skills and will take your word for it.
Still, Hamon is unfortunately making a very poor campaign on several grounds:
1. the evidence is that he is barely managing to attract between one half and one third of natural socialist party electors so far. I fully realize that President Hollande makes an ideal culprit for everything including the weather for many and especially for the excellent “imbeciles utiles” of the extreme left. Still.
2. He spends a great deal of time attacking everybody else but the paleo-trotskyst Melenchon. This is a very clear sign that he has not fully understood the political situation he is in: there are two left left candidates campaigning for the same electors. Given the political orientation Hamon has chosen for his campaign, the only electors he can conceivably hope convincing on top of those he has are the Melenchon electors. Melenchon is the one he should be attacking if he wants to have any hope of moving from the ridiculous 12% he is stuck at. Even the CP was able to understand that in the old days.
Other left and centre left electors including members of the socialist party have chosen Macron as I have for the simple following reasons:
– The so-called frondeurs, that includes Hamon, have spent close to 5 years systematically sabotaging Hollande’s presidency. In other words, they made sure that the first presidency of the left since Mitterrand would not succeed, and even dared attempt to censor the government in parliament. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
– Thus their trial for treason of Macron is, shall we say, a bit rich.
– Of course Hollande has made some mistakes. The main ones were to attempt to fit what should have been a program for a septennat into a quinquennat, and the lamentable issue about nationality. I remain convinced that the achievements of his presidency will be reevaluated in a better way in the future.
– Pie-in-the-sky as a program of government will ensure that they do as well as Corbyn is doing in the UK. And the next step for the socialist party under Hamon’s leadership may well be as in the UK the “Momentum step”, ensuring excellent rethoric and zero achievements for the people. The people of course include the workers who do not need excellent speech, but need to actually make progress in, you know, real life. I used to have a lot of respect for organisations like the CGT – not least under Séguy or Thibault – who achieved things for workers. Also of course the great socialist party of Mitterrand, for the same reason. I do not respect talkers who achieve nothing.
– Hamon’s campaign will thus have only one result: the future collapse of the socialist party into a marginal protest party with zero hope of regaining power in the foreseeable future. This is not the party I was a member of.
– In this context, Macron remains the best shot for decent, progressive government and even appears today as capable of avoiding for France the shame and danger of having a SozNat as the first party in the country. Now is not the time to think again.
What a contrast this makes with the German SPD, which at the moment is the only progressive party in Europe – apart from En Marche – with a decent shot at achieving office and thus with a chance at actually improving life for the poor and less well off!
Bernard, your critiques of Hamon are well-taken. I don’t fundamentally disagree with anything you say here, except on Hamon and Mélenchon competing for the same voters. They’re not, actually. The electorates of the PS and Front de Gauche distinct and have been so for some time now.
I a not surprised that you liked this phrase, but who is he talking to? who will get these references apart from intellio addicts of French politics history
Hamon was talking to the faithful in the arena. And the reaction to his phrase above was rapturous.
I fought to keep awake and listen to our political elite until the end. This was a pretty poor show and a very bad debate. I think all of them were wriggling and fearful and unconvincing. The good news was that Marine was worse than most of the time. Melenchon appeared as a tired radical veteran and sometimes almost poetic, Hamon was a total bore, Fillon was a mummy in a 7500 € suit telling us he was the only reliable guy in the lot, and Macron was maybe not as bad as some feared but he certainly was not brilliant or clear, or convincing or anything close to that. The whole thing was pathetic.
My personal intuition tells me nobody did benefit from this show, there will be more undecided people tomorrow than before and the temptation to cast a blank bulletin is growing as well as the envy to just go out fishing and let them rot in hell, who needs a government anyway ?.
I actually fell asleep for half an hour during the debate, just after the break and when the subject moved on to the economy. It was a frustrating spectacle, as all multi-candidate debates invariably are, and, at over three hours, way too long. I agree that it was largely a waste of time. The eleven candidate debates (or “debates”) on April 4th and 20th will be an even bigger waste. I may not even bother watching them.
In any case, I will wager that not a single voter in France and Navarre changed his or her vote on account of what s/he saw on TF1 last night.
As for trying to score the performances and designate winners and losers, ouf!
Most of the comments I have seeing seem to indicate that Hamon was the biggest “loser” other than perhaps MLP who probably didn’t pick up any new votes but probably didn’t lose any of her base either. In particular there seems to be a conclusion that head to head Melenchon beat Hamon despite the fact Melenchon came off as ancient veteran radical.
There were, objectively speaking, no “winners” or “losers” last night. As for Hamon, I thought he was particularly good on foreign policy and immigration. But he really needs to do something about his Nixonian 5 o’clock shadow, plus the short sleeves on his suit jacket (which particularly grated on Arthur Goldhammer…).
Arun I applaud you voting your conscience in the first round. My partner announced last night he was voting Hamon and I applauded that too. I don’t get to vote here, I just get to make noise. I am more strategic by nature and, could I vote, I’d vote Macron for the reasons you state, plus I genuinely like some of his program. There’s a lot I like about Hamon (though not his campaigning), even if I’ve never taken his chances terribly seriously. I would much rather see his brand of leftism lead the PS than the conservative derriereisme that gets to count for the party now. Very little that’s optimistic, positive, hopeful, and forward-moving on the French left today, which makes me sad. He feels like he could be that guy, and if he performs well enough perhaps he wears the mantle of the future of the left. That would be OK with me, provided he can get real. Universal income is 100% a non-starter in a France where 60% of the body politic calls itself right wing. We may be waiting, once again, for some Scandinavian country to pilot it first. God bless them.
Alexandra, I’m now wavering between Hamon and Macron. See my comment to Massilian above (I’m such a wimp…).
Why wimp??? A vote is a big deal and it should always be taken really seriously.
The Marianne for best silk and cachemire costume, goes to Honest Fillon,
The Marianne for “clabauderie” goes to Marine Le Pen (“clabauder” is barking and slandering, both at the same time)
The Marianne for “figuration intelligente” or best second row extra, goes to Benoît Hamon
The Marianne for best vernacular dialogue goes to Jean-Luc Mélenchon
The Marianne for best rope walking goes to Emmanuel Macron
What a night !
The first presidential candidate who wears a necktie that is not black or blue may well get my vote.
I think that if there is enough popular demand and support from Brigitte, we may get President Macron to wear on odd days a silk scarf (Hermès) with a white or blue (Charvet) shirt and a fine blazer by Cifonneli, but I’am strictly opposed to presidential polo shirts.
Well, Melenchon wore a red (or should I say marroon tie), so you’ve been outed, Arun!
Mise au point: If Mélenchon wears a tie that is not red, then I will seriously consider voting for him. And if he wears a yellow power tie – as in 1980s Washington – then it’s a done deal!
OH MY GOD FOR REAL. Why are French candidates so monochrome? Are they running for president or to replace OSS 117? I admit to be equally sick of the red power tie in the US. And now of course haberdashery is even more fraught post-Arnys-gate, so perhaps it’s all such a hornets’ nest of signification they’re better left sticking to generic slim cuts (because they can) and boring ties. But it is such a cliché. Then again, once whoever becomes president they can go to Charvet with no drama and sort themselves out.
I could be wrong about this but I think that it’s Sarkozy who made black and dark blue ties the rule for French politicians. I started to notice it when he was president. It’s as if his conseiller de com’ told him that black ties signify sobriety and seriousness. What bullshit. Perhaps it was Sarko’s own narrow mindedness and lack of aesthetics and taste. Contrast this with Barack Obama’s beautiful bright ties, or those of any given member of the US Congress for that matter. If men are going to wear ties, they should wear nice, bright colorful ones. Ties that one notices and maybe admires.
Skinny black ties are the fashion. Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte would have merged seamlessly into the candidate lineup. I imagine mélenchon doesn’t employ a stylist. The other candidates do, which would explain why they turned up at the party dressed as each other. A narrow win for Macron, whose blue shirt set off his eyes beautifully.
Tony Blair wore purple ties – a Third Way between red and blue.
Over time, the imperial purple of the crazed emperor.
Men in general, but especially male politicians have very little room to maneuver, fashion-wise. And yet the brightest and most brilliant ties are French (Charvet, Hermès). Step it up people! Represent France! (Though maybe wait til after the election and you can say you’re doing it for the good of French business and less because your favorite influence peddler bought it for you.)
Looking at your pictures, I have the impression the crowds were actually very different. Demographically at least they may not have that much overlap.
Oops, speaking about the rallies…
Very astute, Myos. I’ve remarked on how the demographics of the Front de Gauche electorate and that of the PS are different. The archetypal one for the former would be a cheminot or employé at EDF, for the latter a lycée prof…
The decision about who to attack reflects a professional judgement about whose support is softest. The strategy worked well for Hamon over the weekend, but less so on Monday night. The prearranged defections of PS high-ups since then are a perception-management attempt to undermine Hamon in similar fashion.
Our only way to judge the effectiveness of these manoeuvres is the latest poll, which is frustrating and unsatisfactory.
@arun @myos
Which of course is why the latest polls post-debate, following Hamon’s poor performance and Melenchon’s relatively good one, show part of Hamon’s electorate switching to Melenchon.
When I suggested Hamon should concentrate on having some of Melenchon’s electorate switch for him rather than electorates he is alienating every day, I was actually serious with an electorate I’ve known sort of like the back of my hand for 40 years. Hamon hasn’t realized this, Melenchon cannily has.
Hamon and Mélenchon concluded a non-aggression pact two or three weeks back, agreeing not to attack one another. This was probably a good idea, as it’s not clear that Hamon would benefit by going negative on JLM. But now that Hamon is being overtaken by JLM – likely on account of PS voters defecting to Macron – it’s not clear to me what Hamon can or should do to regain momentum. He’s in a tough spot.
I know this is a weird thing to bring up but I noticed that even when Macron was photographed on a beach he refused to take his shirt off despite the presence of others who shall we say were far more casually dressed.
This almost reminds of the famous line in the TV show the Sopranos when “old school” NY Mob Boss Carmine Lapertuzzi tells Tony Soprano that a “Don never wears shorts.”
I can’t think of how many pictures of Sarkozy were taken shirtless with his famous Ray Ban sunglasses and a gold chain around his neck. Despite his youth I get the feeling Macron has a far better idea of how to act the part of being a President or a Don than Sarkozy and Hollande.
I don’t see Marcon refusing to do anything here. He was just caught in a photo with a shirt on. Ce n’est pas la mer à boire…