2022 French People's Primary
The People's Primary () is a nomination vote launched by independent activists to nominate a common left-wing candidate for the 2022 French presidential election. The process involved two steps. Firstly, an online sponsorship of potential participants was started in July 2021 and completed in October 2021. After this, a vote among seven candidates took place from 27 to 30 January 2022, three of whom declined to participate in the primary. The primary was conducted according to a majority judgment voting system, in which all voters rate all candidates, with the candidate with the highest  median rating winning. Christiane Taubira, the only well-known candidate who accepted to participate, won the primary. Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon who came in second and third place respectively had not even given their consent to be candidates. Taubira subsequently pulled out of the presidential race on 2 March 2022, citing the main reason being that she only achieved 181 of the 500 required sponsorships. After Taubira withdrew from the race, the organizers of the primary announced their support for Mélenchon's campaign, even though he was only ranked in third place by the voters, behind Taubira and  Jadot. History. Foundation and structure. The initiative for a so-called "people's" primary for the leftists and greens was launched by the collective "Rencontre des justices", formed in October 2020 by "social entrepreneurs" and a range of activists, who wanted to create a "justice bloc". They have described this as a "third way" between an "identity bloc" and a "neoliberal bloc", which covers voters from a wide range of the left, from the more centrist parties to anti-capitalist ones. The activists hope to use a primary to nominate a single unity candidate who will promote a progressive agenda  and provide an alternative to the battle between incumbent President Macron and the extreme right of Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour. Their goal was that the candidate bring together a fragmented and divided left, in order to respond to “environmental, social and economic emergencies”. They hope that the candidate will gather enough support to reach the second round, after the defeat of the Socialist Party which finished in fifth place in the 2017 presidential election. A structure called "2022 or never" was responsible for organising the primary, created in February 2021. It is made up of six employees and  received 30,000 euros in fundraising. Local groups were set up to prepare a local base beyond labels. The primary claims the support of around a hundred major figures, including director Cyril Dion, actors Charles Berling and Juliette Binoche, yellow vest activist Priscillia Ludosky, journalist Marie-Monique Robin and climatologist Jean Jouzel. Among the first potential candidates interested was MEP Pierre Larrouturou, the former socialist Gérard Filoche, and environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau. The first step in the process of the primary was the drafting of a common platform made up of "flagship proposals" to which the candidates and voters must adhere. In  May 2021, Samuel Grzybowski, spokesperson for the popular primary, declared to the press that “for several months, each week, a 'council of the parties' has been meeting to agree on a common base”, without specifying which parties. A few months later, it was announced that citizens could sponsor candidates until October, with the vote originally scheduled for taking place in late Autumn. Visitors to the website were given two options: to promose names themselves and to approve one of the existing candidates. Reactions and protests from the major candidates. No political party nor any of the major candidates committed themselves  to the primary, even if some have not outright opposed it, as they want to keep their candidates. In January, Christiane Taubira was the only one to commit to stepping down in the event of defeat, after having rejected any presidential candidacy in September. By the time of the primary, the following parties had already nominated their candidates: Mélenchon signifed his refusal to partake in the primary, as did Jadot. Hidalgo originally was open to the proposal, but backtracked after she won her party's primary. Taubira ruled out a candidacy in September 2021, but revoked this in December, officially  announcing her participation in the Primary on 9 January 2022. The political platform. Participation in the primary was based on a common platform of around ten political proposals, which the organizers claim to be inspired by the demands of the latest social movements and compatible with the programs of the parties concerned. No major party came out in favour of this platform. Presented in early July, the platform contained policies such as scrapping nuclear power by 2050, a thermal renovation plan, a 'solidarity income' from the age of 18, a modernisation of the wealth tax, the introduction of multi-member  proportional voting in legislative elections and a reduction in the working week. It did not take a position on certain divisive subjects, such as the European Union. Organisation. Funding. The “2022 or never” association finances its employees, auto-entrepreneurs, its trainees and this vote. It declared that it received 730,000 euros in donations and 175,000 euros in loans. There were loans of up to €100,000 by business leaders and three donations of more than €20,000. Election funding. One week before the vote and two days before the closing date for registrations, the financing of this election from the  technological service providers did not seem assured, forcing the association to raise money. Sponsorships. The candidate sponsorship process was open from 11 July to 11 October 2021, through an online voting system. Twelve initial people were proposed by the organizers at the launch of this process: Sponsorships obtained on 11 October. After the sponsorship period, the organisers give the names of the five men and five women who collected the most sponsorships. These candidates had also had to have obtained at least 500 sponsorships and be supposedly a member of the 'common base'. There were 132,000 registered sponsorships cast. According  to an article in "Liberation", the PCF candidate Fabien Roussel came 18th out of 21 candidates with 1,944 sponsorships and the 13th man out of 14. Seven candidates were chosen in the end, since in the end, Gaël Giraud, François Ruffin and Clémentine Autain all withdrew from the primary. Voting procedure. The 7 candidates were subject to a single round of voting from 27 to 30 January 2022. The voting system is a form of majority judgment, where the voter rates the candidates. Voters must give each candidate a grade, out of five possible options: “very good”, “good”, “fairly good ”, “acceptable” and “insufficient”. The candidate with the best median grade wins the election. To participate in this final vote, the person must confirm that they recognize themselves in the common base, are of French nationality and are over 16 years old. Voters. The number of registered voters is 466,895. This is much more than the 122,000 in the 2021 Green Party primary and the 139,742 registered in the 2021 Republican Congress, but much less than the 2017 Socialist Party primary, which had over 2 million voters, or that of 2011 with its 2.8 million voters. The actual number of registered  voters cannot be verified due to the system used to register registrations, which does not make it possible to verify the identity of voters and which can allow the same person with several email addresses to vote multiple times. Results. Each voter gave every candidate a grade from 'Very Good' to 'Insufficient'. An overall grade was then calculated from this. Christiane Taubira came out on top, winning the primary.