Benoît Hamon will meet his local supporters this evening at 6 PM at the Acropolis. He will be accompanied by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, one of the few government members campaigning for him.
It will be a delicate evening in a region where voters are overwhelmingly divided between the “hard” right and the “extreme” right.
The evening is all the more delicate considering that the most representative local socialist elected official, Patrick Allemand, has announced his support for Emmanuel Macron’s candidacy, following Christophe Castaner, the socialist candidate in the 2015 regional elections, who withdrew from the Socialist Party to campaign for the former Finance Minister.
These signals indicate that the social-democratic faction has not well digested Benoît Hamon’s victory in the socialist primary, nor his political program, which disavows the government left.
And how can we forget that the “rebels,” including Benoît Hamon, spent a good part of Hollande’s five-year presidency making life difficult for the government?
It will be interesting to see if the internal fractures within the party are as minor as those caused by the construction of tram line 2 to the buildings on Victor Hugo Boulevard, or if there is a more imminent threat.
The new Saint-Sébastien, Xavier Garcia, federal secretary of the 06, perfectly illustrates this: “My reservations about Benoît Hamon’s program and strategy are no secret, but I will be at Acropolis today with Paul Cuturello and the national campaign team for the final preparations of (this) Wednesday’s meeting and then at the weekly campaign committee.”
