European elections 2024. How to analyze the growing popularity of Raphaël Glucksmann?

Ousted from a Saint-Etienne procession on May 1, the head of the list of the Socialist Party-Public Square, Raphaël Glucksmann, does not mince his words. Suspecting activists from La France Insoumise and the Young Communists of having attacked him, the Euro MP points the finger at the responsibility of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former ally of the PS: “When we use verbal violence, it always results by physical violence. » The union of the left within the New Ecological and Social Popular Union, the famous “Nupes”, seems very distant. After putting aside their differences to face the 2022 legislative elections, The Ecologists-Europe Ecology The Greens, the Socialist Party, La France insoumise and the Communist Party have chosen to take separate paths for the Europeans next June.

Co-founder, on November 6, 2018, of the Place publique movement, Raphaël Glucksmann was one of those who advocated for this strategic option. And for good reason: today it allows him to fully play the card of moderation against that of radicalism. The candidate does not miss an opportunity to point out that he occupies a large political space between Emmanuel Macron and the rebels. For the moment, this positioning seems to be working for him. An Ipsos study, published on May 16 for Radio France and The Parisian, in fact gives it 14.5% of voting intentions, only one and a half points from the list of the majority carried by Valérie Hayer. All polling institutes tirelessly place it ahead of the LFI and environmentalist lists, credited respectively with 8% and 6% by Ifop.

The Greens divided

In 2019, however, Raphaël Glucksmann only received 6.19% of the votes, far behind the 13.48% of environmentalists. The latter, led today by Marie Toussaint, have little chance of repeating such success in view of the polls, even though this election is traditionally favorable to them. “This year the debates are largely structured around geopolitical questions, which do not constitute the most promising theme for the Greens,” analyzes political scientist Pierre-Nicolas Baudot. It is all the more difficult since they have not found their place within the political reorganization on the left and they appear internally divided on the line to adopt. » Rebellious France could find itself less destabilized by the results of the vote. In 2019, the rebels had certainly failed to extend the dynamic started in the presidential election two years earlier, but without this ultimately having an impact on the 2022 election.

Can the growing aura of MEP Glucksmann reshuffle the cards within his camp after the June 9 meeting? In the opinion of Pierre-Nicolas Baudot, the pre-poll voting intentions do not appear sufficiently marked to tip the scales in favor of a more centrist tendency. Especially since the PS candidate “is not a socialist figure,” he recalls. Even if it goes beyond this partisan division, the internal conflicts and issues within the party will quickly come to the fore.”

This European election is also fracturing the left, with on one side the rebels, very critical of the EU, and on the other the ecologists and socialists, for whom the future lies in Europe. The vote will have effects on the strategic line of the Socialist Party, whose date of the next congress must be set before the 2027 presidential election. The fire of division could then be rekindled between the supporters of a pro-Nupes line, carried by the First Secretary, Olivier Faure, and those who are less favorable to union with La France insoumise, like the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol.

The mirage of union

Raphaël Glucksmann's social-democratic line still makes more than one dream. And with nearly 30% of cumulative voting intentions for these Europeans, the entire left is now hoping to be able to appear in the second round of the 2027 presidential election. The socialist MEP does not, however, give a glimpse of any presidential ambition. And then, is union still possible? “The reformist left and the revolutionary left may have always been irreconcilable, but they always ended up getting along,” replies Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, former first secretary of the PS. If the left had the capacity to unite around its revolutionary wing in 2022, it will be able to do so in 2027 around social democracy. » We still need to be able to march on May 1st without insulting ourselves.