“We are very numerous to receive news from Arnaud Montebourg”, jokes a parliamentarian. For a few days, the former Minister of Productive Recovery of François Hollande has been consulting all-out for a possible presidential candidacy in 2022. The entrepreneur, now distant from the PS, believes in his chances and will make his decision quickly, “in the weeks to come” slips a friend. The political movement, launched last Sunday by its supporters, has seen an influx of 1,500 members in four days and records about fifty new online registrations per day. Called “The Commitment”, the association uses the title of its book, which has sold 16,000 copies since its release in November. A good start for this type of work.
“Arnaud has seen, since the start of the school year, that the political space on the left was becoming clearer, confides a relative. Instead of the five or six potential applicants, from Bernard Cazeneuve to Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, only he and Anne Hidalgo are left. It is now a speed race. If the mayor of Paris is also preparing to launch an embryonic party, Montebourg, after six years of political exile interspersed with an unsuccessful candidacy for the 2017 primary, must expressly reactivate his networks and especially expand them. The former PS deputy for Saône-et-Loire is therefore combing in all directions and without limiting himself to the left.
“His story starts from a humus of the left but now he sees more broadly, analyzes a member of his team. To get started, he wants to be sure that France is ready to disentangle itself from the right-left divide. »Supporting surveys, he is convinced that his favorite themes (de-globalization, made in France, reindustrialisation, reconquest of French sovereignty, etc.) have never been so much in tune with public opinion and that they cross the political arc. Soft populism, in a way.
“His line can be likened to a modernized Gaullism”
In recent weeks, Montebourg has thus contacted the mayor (LR) of Cannes David Lisnard and regularly discusses with the president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand, possible candidate in 2022. Tuesday, the number 2 of the Republicans Guillaume Peltier noted “points in common” with the former minister. And on January 25, it is alongside MP (LR) Marc Le Fur that he will meet Nokia employees in the Côtes-d’Armor. “There will be zero device agreement and zero poaching on the right, tempers his entourage. What Arnaud is looking for is building bridges to voters. A strategy which is not without danger, however. “Its line can be likened to a modernized Gaullism, recognizes a socialist opponent. But it risks blurring an image that is already far from clearly identified. “
But it is especially on the left that Montebourg throws its nets. From former socialist slingers to sovereignists, including rebellious people who have broken the ban… According to our information, the Montebourg team would have taken up the language with the Republican and Citizen Movement (MRC), founded by Jean-Pierre Chevènement and very attached to values republican, or with the Republican and Socialist Left (GRS), co-founded by Emmanuel Maurel, MEP elected in 2019 on the list of rebellious France. François Cocq, a former leader of LFI excluded in 2019, has taken the plunge by joining the inner circle of Montebourg. “If the problem for Anne Hidalgo it is the Greens, for Montebourg, it is Mélenchon”, analyzes Philippe Doucet, member of the National Council of the PS.
Behind the scenes, Senator (PS) Laurence Rossignol, very close to the former minister, also consults her colleagues on the left. Like Sophie Taillé-Polian, who is at the head of Generation. s, the movement of Benoît Hamon. In lack of relays on the ground, Montebourg also reaches out to the newly elected socialist mayors of large cities such as Nancy, Montpellier, Bourges, Saint-Denis or Rouen. “It is easier for him to forge links with personalities of the party with whom he shares neither past nor liabilities”, confides a relative.
Serious disabilities
However, Montebourg leaves with serious handicaps. His label of “productivist” hinders a massive rallying of environmentalists. Even if he is full of praise for Eric Piolle, EELV mayor of Grenoble. As for the Communists, they remain very circumspect. “We have no relationship with Montebourg,” says Fabien Roussel, number one in the PC. In addition, he has no party and we do not know anything about his project. “
Another obstacle in the way of the former minister: money. While the mayor of Paris could draw from the coffers of the PS, he can only count on donations – capped at 4,600 euros each – to collect the some 10 million euros needed in the first round of a presidential campaign, including minus 3 to 4 million in equity. As for the companies that Montebourg frequented a lot when he was in Bercy, few seem inclined, for the moment, to make their contribution to the one who has made state interventionism a trademark. “Money is one of the questions, admits a friend. Arnaud will hesitate until the last second because he needs both the money … and the enthusiasm of the French. “
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