Primary left: Faure, Tondelier, Autain and Ruffin put the coin back in the machine

Last night at La Bellevilloise in Paris, Olivier Faure, Marine Tondelier, Clémentine Autain, and François Ruffin revived the idea of ​​a left-wing primary for 2027 during a meeting of the "Popular Front 2027" collective. Organizers reported 1,200 attendees, with a rallying atmosphere and carefully crafted speeches all centered around a shared obsession: to quickly unite the left in order to avoid fragmentation in the face of the far-right's growing momentum. On stage, each played their part.

Tondelier brandished a figure, "82%" of left-wing and Green voters in favor of a primary, in an attempt to dismiss the dissenters as isolated. Ruffin, who claims to have 100,000 supporters, hammered home a simple, almost populist principle: the choice must be made "by vote," not in party corridors.

A date, a vote… and the shadow of Mélenchon

Amidst this unfolding scene, Clémentine Autain put words to the prevailing nervousness, asking whether this meeting would be "a swan song or a resurgence." A candidate in the process, she admitted that the primary "has hit a snag" since Jean-Luc Mélenchon's candidacy was officially announced and internal resistance has arisen, while maintaining that it is the only "democratic" way to decide the leadership. The group intends to stay the course and is maintaining the October 11th deadline, while Lucie Castets promises a system that is "not a pipe dream" and the upcoming publication of "eight initial shared priorities" to outline a foundation.

There remains one detail which is not one: part of the left, from Raphaël Glucksmann to Mélenchon himself, contests this method, and that is where the mechanism seizes up, because the union is easily proclaimed but it is won by the sweat of renunciations… between now and autumn.