WHAT explains the sudden rise of Benoît Hamon? A few months ago he was a nondescript former education minister. Now he is favoured to beat Manuel Valls, the centrist who was France’s prime minister until last month, in a run-off primary on January 29th for the Socialist presidential nomination, having won the first round a week earlier. A proud leftist, he would probably lead his party to a crushing defeat in the election in April.
The party’s true believers were fired up by Mr Hamon’s ideas. He says France can cope with digital disruption by adopting a universal basic income, eventually to be worth €750 ($805) a month per adult. He would cut the 35-hour working week even shorter and levy taxes on the use of robots. (After all, robots can’t vote.) Why, though, didn’t the party’s centrists turn out for Mr Valls? Unfortunately for him, it looks as if they have abandoned the party altogether.
To see where French centrists have gone, one needed to take a trip to a pig farm in Brittany last week, where a crowd of reporters trailed behind Emmanuel Macron, an independent candidate and ex-minister. Mr Macron had forgotten his rubber boots, but...Continue reading
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