Benoît Hamon: France's Utopian Candidate?
The far-left Socialist leader is seen as a long shot in next month’s presidential contest.
In January, Benoît Hamon, the far-left politician, beat out former Prime Minister Manuel Valls to lead the French Socialist Party’s ticket in next month’s presidential contest, but you wouldn’t know it by some of the party members’ endorsements.
In the past few weeks, Socialist leaders like Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister, and Thierry Braillard, the sports minister, have thrown their support behind Hamon’s independent rival , signaling a divide within a his decision to defect from the Socialists and endorse Macron—a candidate he once dismissed as “populism-lite.” Valls told French broadcaster BFMTV that his decision “isn’t out of love for the candidate” but rather “about being reasonable.”
