Candidates take their marks ahead of dramatic leadership race for French Socialists

PARIS — Grab your popcorn.

The race to lead the French Socialist Party is shaping up to be a dramatic affair, one that could have major ramifications for France’s next presidential election.

Three candidates have thrown their hats in the Socialist ring. The party’s current leader, Olivier Faure, is being challenged by one of his former top deputies, Boris Vallaud, and a rival he struggled to beat last election, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. In their shadows lurks former President François Hollande, who is plotting another run for the highest office in the next election, scheduled for 2027.

The newest contender, the 49-year-old Vallaud, has been president of the Socialists in the National Assembly since 2022 — making him one of the party’s most prominent figures alongside Faure. Vallaud comes from the same crop of French politicians as current President Emmanuel Macron. Both attended the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration and Vallaud succeeded Macron as former Hollande’s deputy chief of staff, a position the current president occupied before he launched his own centrist political party.

The stakes are high for the Socialists. For decades, they were France’s biggest left-wing party, and their broad tent encompassed much of the French left’s ideological spectrum.

But Hollande’s disappointing presidency left many of his voters disillusioned with the party and allowed the outspoken former Socialist senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon to build his populist France Unbowed movement into a credible alternative for voters now seeking more radical change.

The 49-year-old Vallaud, has been president of the Socialists in the National Assembly since 2022. | Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images

The last two presidential elections ended in catastrophe for the Rose party. In 2022, the party’s nominee for president — Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo — scored less than 2 percent of the vote in the first round of the contest while Mélenchon nearly made the runoff.

Confronted with this new electoral reality, Faure, chose to bring the Socialists into an alliance alongside France Unbowed and other leftist parties in a bid to prevent the far right from winning snap elections last summer.

The move, though unpopular with a large swath of the Socialists, allowed the party to retain seats in parliament after coming close to extinction.

The last leadership race, in 2023, was bitterly contested. Faure was reelected with just over 51 percent of the vote, narrowly defeating Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of the northern city of Rouen and a strong advocate against working with Mélenchon.

Mayer-Rossignol is running again — once more focusing his campaign on cutting ties with France Unbowed. Meanwhile, Vallaud is seeking to present himself as the party’s unifier. In an opinion piece in the daily Libération, he said uniting the left in the last elections was the right call — but stressed the need for the Socialists to rebuild their own platform.

No one will be following the race more closely than Hollande, France’s last Socialist president. In 2017, Hollande was so unpopular that he decided not to run for reelection and saw his own former economy minister, Macron, win the presidency.

Mayer-Rossignol is running again — once more focusing his campaign on cutting ties with France Unbowed. | Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Hollande returned to electoral politics last summer, winning back his old seat in parliament. While ruling out a leadership bid, he has stressed the need for an independent Socialist candidacy in 2027 — one he could potentially lead.

“My goal isn’t to be the Socialist Party’s first secretary. … [it’s] 2027 for France to have a solution,” Hollande said earlier this month.