Lionel Robert Jospin is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.
Michel Rocard was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991, during which he created the Revenu minimum d'insertion (RMI), a social minimum welfare program for indigents, and achieved the Matignon Accords regarding the status of New Caledonia. He was a member of the European Parliament, and was strongly involved in European policies until 2009. In 2007, he joined a Commission under the authority of Nicolas Sarkozy's Minister of Education, Xavier Darcos.
The Radical Party of the Left is a social-liberal political party in France. A party in the Radical tradition, since 1972 the PRG was a close ally of the major party of the centre-left in France, the Socialist Party. After the 2017 presidential and legislative elections, negotiations to merge the PRG with the Radical Party began and the refounding congress to reunite the parties into the Radical Movement was held on 9 and 10 December 2017. However, a faction of ex-PRG members, including its last president Sylvia Pinel, split from the Radical Movement in February 2019 due to its expected alliance with La République En Marche in the European elections and resurrected the PRG.
Pierre Moscovici is a French politician who served as the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs from 2014 to 2019. He previously served as Minister of Finance from 2012 to 2014 and as Minister for European Affairs between 1997 and 2002.
Benoît Hamon is a French politician known for his former role within the Socialist Party (PS) and Party of European Socialists (PES) and his political party Génération.s.
Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn is a French economist, politician, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a figure in the French Socialist Party who attained notoriety due to his involvement in several sexual scandals. He is often referred to in the media, and by himself, by his initials DSK. Strauss-Kahn was appointed managing director of the IMF on 28 September 2007, with the backing of then–President of France Nicolas Sarkozy. He served in that capacity until his resignation on 18 May 2011, in the wake of an allegation that he had sexually assaulted a hotel maid. Other allegations followed, but he was acquitted.
The Citizen and Republican Movement is a political party in France. The party replaced, in 2002, the Citizens' Movement founded by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, who left the Socialist Party (PS) in 1993 due to his opposition to the Persian Gulf War and to the Maastricht Treaty. It is a Eurosceptic party with leftist aspirations.
Martine Louise Marie Aubry is a French politician. She was the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from November 2008 to April 2012, and has been the Mayor of Lille (Nord) since March 2001; she is also the first female to hold this position. Her father, Jacques Delors, served as Minister of Finance under President François Mitterrand and was also President of the European Commission.
The Gauche Plurielle was a left-wing coalition in France, composed of the Socialist Party, the French Communist Party, the Greens, the Left Radical Party, and the Citizens' Movement. Succeeding Alain Juppé's conservative government, the Plural Left governed France from 1997 to 2002. It was another case of cohabitation between rival parties at the head of the state and of the government. Following the failure of the left in the 2002 legislative election, it was replaced by another conservative government, this time headed by Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
French presidential debates, broadcast on TV, traditionally occurred only between the two rounds of the presidential elections.
In 2017, for the first time, a presidential debate took place prior to the first round.
Manuel Carlos Valls Galfetti is a French and Spanish politician who has served as a Barcelona city councillor from 2019 to 2021. He served as Prime Minister of France from 2014 until 2016 under president François Hollande.
Olivier Christophe Besancenot is a French left-wing political figure and trade unionist, and the founding main spokesperson of the New Anticapitalist Party from 2009 to 2011.
The Reims Congress was the twenty-second national congress of the French Socialist Party, taking place from 14 to 16 November 2008 in the city of Reims in the Marne.
Europe Ecology – The Greens is a centre-left to left-wing green political party in France. The party is member of the European Green Party. The party was formed on 13 November 2010 from the merger of The Greens and Europe Ecology, and is considered by politologist on the radical left wing. French journalists consider the party on the radical left or far-left of the political spectrum.
The Socialist Party is a centre-left, social-democratic, political party in France. It holds pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the French left and used to be one of the two major political parties in the French Fifth Republic, along with The Republicans. It replaced the earlier French Section of the Workers' International in 1969 and is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.
The French Socialist Party held a two-round presidential primary to select a candidate for the 2017 presidential election on 22 and 29 January 2017. It was the second open primary held by the center-left coalition, after the primary in 2011 in which François Hollande defeated Martine Aubry to become the Socialist nominee. Hollande went on to defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. However, because of his low approval rating, he announced that he would not seek re-election, becoming the first president of the Fifth Republic to decide not to run for a second term. The primary was contested by seven candidates, four from the Socialist Party and three representing other parties part of the left-wing electoral alliance.
François-Michel Lambert is a French politician who has represented the 10th constituency of the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the National Assembly since 2012. A former member of Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), which he left in 2015 to join Jean-Luc Bennahmias's Democratic Front (FD), he has been a member of Liberty Ecology Fraternity (LEF) since 2020.
Alain Geismar is a French politician, physicist, and Honorary Inspector General of Education.
The Republican and Socialist Left is a socialist political party in France. It was founded on 3 February 2019 after the merger of the Alternative for a Republican, Ecologist and Socialist Program (APRÉS) and the Citizen and Republican Movement (MRC) of Jean-Luc Laurent and Jean-Pierre Chevènement. APRÉS had been founded in October of 2018 by Emmanuel Maurel and Marie-Noëlle Lienemann after their departure from the Socialist Party and was close to La France Insoumise.
The New Ecologic and Social People's Union is a left-wing political coalition in France led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Formed on May Day in 2022, it includes La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF), Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), Ensemble! (E!), and Génération.s (G.s), as well as their respective smaller partners.
