Who is Raphael Glucksmann, winner of the French left presidential primary?

Here in France, there's just six months to go to presidential elections and a coalition of centre-left parties have now chosen a common candidate. It's EU lawmaker Raphael Glucksmann. The 46-year-old has told voters he stands for a break with Macronism, a break with the far left of candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and he says he's also the candidate who can defeat the far right. The opinion polls suggest in a second round runoff, he would not in fact beat Marine Le Pen. While Glucksmann now needs to unite a very divided left in France, Nick Rushworth takes a closer look. He is the founder of a small centre-left party and a French member of the European Parliament. Raphael Glucksmann now is overwhelmingly the social democratic candidate for the French presidential election in April. He vowed to unite the centre-left and laid down the battle lines for the campaign. Our real opponent is the far right. And we are going to unite to fight and prevent the Trump supporters, the Putin supporters, xenophobes and demagogues from taking over the French Republic. Glucksmann has been an MEP since 2019 and twice led the French socialist campaigns in European elections. While critical of the current president's pro-business policies, he takes a similar pro-Ukraine and pro-European line, strongly defending liberal democracy. One analyst says he could attract voters unwilling to choose either France's far-right Marine Le Pen or France's far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Glucksmann is someone who has promised he will not seek an alliance with Mélenchon's France Unbowed. He is a classic social democrat. He's built his own story, first of all, by being a journalist. He did a documentary about the role of France in Rwanda. and is someone who should at least attract people who are scared of Mélenchon but do not want to vote on the right. Among a variety of roles in his career, he was an advisor to the president of Georgia between 2005 and 2012. He is the son of philosopher André Glucksmann and a partner to a prominent TV news presenter. Well, to get insight on it all, we can speak now to Professor Paul Smith from the University of Nottingham. Thanks for your time. we're looking at a divided left here in France do you feel that Raphael Glucksmann will be able to unite this side become a candidate to yield a widespread support from the left well that's the the million dollar question isn't it the his big problem is that he doesn't have a party as such behind him so he's going to be relying enormously on the socialists to rally to him so that's going to be the big issue for him. He's standing at about 12 percent in the national opinion polls, so that's not as high as he really needs to be. So he'll be hoping that there's some kind of élan behind him that will push him through. And he has long said that he will absolutely not enter into an alliance with the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. I mean, what do you make of that tactic? What is there to fear with Mélenchon, who's doing very well in the polls? Well, politically speaking, it might be disastrous, but we have to say that the result last night showed us that there's a very strong feeling within the socialist party that they don't want that, or at least with left-wing voters, they don't want an alliance, an open alliance with Mélenchon. that might come later after the presidential election when we get to the legislative elections. But this really was a very swinging defeat for anybody who thinks that there's the possibility of extending a hand towards Mélenchon. We have, however, seen these socialist primaries in France before not really play out when it comes to the electoral vote. I mean, what level of importance do you put into the fact that he took 66% of this primary vote. Does that put him in a strong position as we start his election campaign? It puts him in a strong position in terms of his relationship with the Socialist Party. But there is still the big question of, it's rather like 2006, when Ségolène Royal was massively endorsed by the ordinary membership, but the actual political, the machine itself of the party didn't really get behind her. And that was one of the reasons that she came up short in 2007. And it's really going to be that question of mobilising support across the piece and trying to bring in the non-Mélenchon left as well. A lot of tension with the ecologists to see if there's some kind of broad non-Mélenchon left-wing bloc. And that still doesn't look terribly, terribly probable at the moment. Of course, in all elections, it ultimately comes down to bread and butter issues. We have in recent weeks, we have these high school protests that are ongoing here in France and that far left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has really come out somewhat as a spokesperson for the youth or at least trying to position himself as such. How do you see Raphael Glucksmann on that issue and those kind of things? Yes, he's kind of lost. The socialists have been and Glucksmann have been so focused on campaign that they've not really been able to gather up this protest movement. But it is part of a broader problem that all the parties will have to confront, which is that there's a sense of disaffected youth. And you're absolutely right that Mélenchon has done a good job, as it were, of grabbing that issue. And it's going to be interesting to see how Glucksmann can find any oxygen from that in order to get any purchase on the protest movement. Of course, France has quite a unique voting system when it comes to their presidential elections. It's this two system process. And a lot of people are already strategically voting in the first round, looking at who might face off in the second round. Opinion polls already saying, you know, who needs to be putting the far right candidate Marine Le Pen in the second round and saying who needs to be against her. You know, where do you see Raphael Glucksmann faced off directly with the far right? He says he is the one candidate there to defeat her. I think that he's one of two candidates who could defeat her. Part of the problem for Mélenchon is that he would alienate quite a lot of conservative or moderate centre voters. Glücksman stands a chance if he went through to the second round. And the other candidate would be whoever the centre candidate is, the centre-right candidate, who might be Édouard Philippe, possible Gabriel Attal. So I think they have a realistic chance. Mélenchon poses a lot of question marks for a lot of voters. Professor Paul Smith from the University of Nottingham, thanks so much for your time and joining us here on France 24 this Monday morning. Much appreciated.