He was supposed to be the third man of the French Socialist primary held on Sunday. While all eyes were on Manuel Valls, the steely former Prime Minister, and Arnaud Montebourg, the charismatic former Economy Minister, the somewhat subdued former education minister Benoît Hamon was never considered a potential frontrunner. And yet only a couple of weeks after Francois Fillon’s shock victory in the conservative primary, history seems to be repeating itself.
Hamon has not won yet, but with over 36 percent of the votes he has a comfortable advance after the first round. Valls, who finished second with 31.1 percent of the votes, was quick to state that ‘a new campaign has started’ ahead of the second round next Sunday. But the odds are definitely on Hamon’s side. Montebourg, who ended up being the third man with 17.5 percent of the votes yesterday, announced that he would be supporting Hamon and sealed Valls’s fate.
Hamon and Montebourg left the government together in August 2014 in a protest against Hollande and Valls’s economic agenda.
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