Hard work starts now for France’s Socialist candidate
PARIS — Beating a politically weakened ex-prime minister proved easy for Benoit Hamon, who will represent France’s ruling Socialist Party in the country’s presidential election. Far harder will be convincing voters that his hard-left platform isn’t the recipe for ruin his critics claim.
Hamon’s comfortable victory Sunday in a Socialist primary runoff against Manuel Valls owed much to his radical proposal to give all French adults a regular monthly income to protect them in an automated future where machines will take their jobs.
Hamon’s winning margin — nearly 59 per cent of the votes in the three-quarters of polling stations tallied — also appeared as a resounding rejection of unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande and Valls, his prime minister for more than two years.
But the path forward for Hamon is littered with obstacles.