I was curious to see who the guy with a little under eight percent in the poll was...I figured he would be a candidate from some obscure upstart party that was over-performing in the polls...
I was wrong; he's the nominee of the party that
currently holds the French Presidency:
The dizzying rise and fall of French Socialist presidential hopeful Benoît Hamon
France’s ruling Socialist Party appears headed for an historic drubbing. Crowned the mainstream left’s presidential nominee in January, Benoît Hamon could fail to clear even single digit support in Sunday’s all-important first-round vote.
On the last Monday before France’s April 23 first-round presidential ballot, a crowd gathered to cheer on far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon near the iconic Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris. Sylvia Jacques, a 60-year-old hospital administrator, was among those who joined the festive event. She was once tempted to back Hamon in the election, until the Socialist’s plummeting figures persuaded her to go with Mélenchon. “I liked Hamon, it’s too bad his campaigned flopped,” she said wistfully. “The opinion polls killed his campaign.”
Indeed, according to recent surveys, Hamon – whose party currently governs the country -- is likely to finish the race in an embarrassing fifth place; behind a far-right populist, a scandal-plagued conservative, a centrist without a party, and a Chairman Mao-overcoat-wearing leftist, no less. On Wednesday evening, he rallied supporters in central Paris in a make-or-break final campaign push. Thousands of supporters packed out the famed Place de la République, much to his campaign team’s relief.
It wasn’t always the case. Hamon emerged as the commanding winner of the Socialist Party’s presidential primary earlier this year, riding a wave of momentum that many believed could carry him all the way.
However, his sharp decline in many ways mirrored his ascension.
Often derided within his own party as “Petit Benoît”, or Little Benoît, the former education minister who had a falling out with President François Hollande and former prime minister Manuel Valls was originally given little chance of winning the Socialist primary. But bold policy proposals – including a basic income for all citizens – and cool control during the televised debates propelled him to the top. Beating Valls in the primary run-off on January 29, he enjoyed around 20 percent support at the start of the race for the presidential Elysée Palace.
Hamon was never going to have it easy. As the nominee of the Socialist Party, he was now carrying the baggage of President Hollande’s unpopular tenure, even though he had quit the government in protest of its pro-market policies. Valls, his constant rival in the primary, had also spent weeks repeating that a vote for Hamon meant “certain failure” in the general election. However, for many left-wing voters, Hamon’s victory represented hope that the Socialist Party would return to its roots. Socialist voters hoped he was a long, but still legitimate, shot at the presidency in 2017.
Fast-forward 11 weeks. With only seven days left in the campaign, Hamon is forecast to claim a derisory eight percent of the vote. His campaign is hemorrhaging support and his career – and the Socialist Party itself – may not recover for decades.
More here:
http://www.france24.com/en/20170419-fra ... list-party
