page_title: 2017 French Socialist Party presidential primary
section_title: Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: 2017 French Socialist Party presidential primary / Background / Campaign
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Benoît Hamon avec plusieurs élus et militants à la tribune à la fin de son meeting à Saint-Denis
context_page_description: The French Socialist Party held a two-round presidential primary to select a candidate for the 2017 presidential election on 22 and 29 January 2017. It was the second open primary held by the center-left coalition, after the primary in 2011 in which François Hollande defeated Martine Aubry to become the Socialist nominee. Hollande went on to defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. However, because of his low approval rating, he announced that he would not seek re-election, becoming the first president of the Fifth Republic to decide not to run for a second term. The primary was contested by seven candidates, four from the Socialist Party and three representing other parties part of the left-wing electoral alliance.
  The three frontrunners in the first round of the primary were Manuel Valls, who served as Hollande's Prime Minister from 2014 to 2016 and interior minister from 2012 to 2014; Benoît Hamon, Minister of National Education in 2014; and Arnaud Montebourg, Minister of the Economy, Production Recovery and the Digital Sector from 2012 to 2014.
context_section_description: The unpopularity of incumbent president Hollande led to widespread speculation as to whether he would choose to run for re-election, facing fierce competition within his own party in the Socialist primary; when he ultimately renounced his candidacy on 1 December 2016, he cleared the way for prime minister Manuel Valls to enter the field on 5 December. Valls, considered the "natural successor" to Hollande and whose attempts to modernize the Socialist Party have been characterized as similar to those of Tony Blair with the British Labour Party, earned a reputation for his law-and-order approach as prime minister, instituting business-friendly supply-side reforms and taking a tough position on migration, at one point even questioning whether Islam was compatible with the French Republic; all these views placed him well to the right wing of his party. Valls' important role in Hollande's government resulted in him becoming similarly unpopular, even within his own party and on the left.
  On 15 December, he declared that if elected president, he would abolish article 49-3, an executive degree enshrined within the Constitution of France. He controversially used it as prime minister to force laws through the National Assembly, bypassing legislative approval, to send them directly to the Senate, and his repudiation of the 49-3 was met with derision, Valls having used it to force through controversial labour reforms in the El Khomri law and the reformist Macron law, moves often described as indicative of his authoritarian tendencies. Valls further attempted to portray himself as a candidate "profoundly of the left" by backing down on his earlier tough tone towards labour, promising not to institute any further reforms to France's 35-hour workweek – beloved by the French left – nor its labour laws, instead taking an anti-austerity tone; despite this, his campaign was overshadowed by past policies such as the abolition of the wealth tax.
  Unveiling his platform on 3 January 2017, he proposed a 2.5% increase in public spending contingent on annual economic growth of 1.9% while keeping the deficit below the 3% of GDP requirement mandated by the Stability and Growth Pact, the creation a "decent income" of €800 for all adult French nationals, halving the gender pay gap in France, a "pause" in the enlargement of the European Union, the addition of a charter of secularism to the Constitution, and the consolidation of the nuclear industry. Valls was physically attacked twice during the campaign; the first incident occurred on 22 December 2016, in which he was flour-bombed by a protester screaming "We do not forget the 49-3. We don't forgive it," a reference to his claim that he would abolish the constitutional provision he twice used to bypass legislative approval, during a visit to a Christmas market in Strasbourg. The second incident, on 17 January 2017, involved an apparent Breton nationalist who slapped him during a campaign stop in Lamballe; although Valls initially brushed the episode off, saying "it's nothing," he later made to press charges, saying "Democracy cannot be about violence."
  Valls' most prominent opponent was initially considered to be former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg, who formally unveiled his platform in Paris on 3 January. The left-wing firebrand proclaimed that French employees should receive wage rises equivalent to executives' in order to constrain corporate pay and called for a "supertax" on banks to raise €5 billion a year. Challenged by former education minister Benoît Hamon, who argued that the focus on economic growth and employment is misplaced, Montebourg argued that the prior was a "necessity" and claimed that he "challenged the theory of the end of work." He also criticized a perceived European obsession with austerity, condemning it as the cause of the country's persistently high rates of unemployment and dismal economic growth, promising to "liberate the French from European-imposed austerity." He also pledged during the campaign that he would not comply with EU deficit rules, in contrast to Valls,
caption: Benoît Hamon at a meeting of supporters in Saint-Denis
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 700D", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:30 20:32:07", "Image Artist": "MARION GERMA", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "890", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "17566", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:08:28 13:31:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:08:28 13:31:20", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "790241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "52", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "202953/35", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "104201/18", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "338075029980", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[55, 250, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "000033f152"}