A four-day "people's primary", to pick a left-wing candidate for the French presidency from a divided and squabbling field, ends this Sunday with doubts remaining that a unifying figure on the left will emerge.
A total of 467,000 people have signed up to take part in the online vote, which started on Thursday.
They have to rank five professional politicians and two civil society candidates on a scale from "very good" to "inadequate".
Whoever wins the best grades average would be expected to rally all the other candidates and their voters behind them, giving the left a fighting change to unseat President Emmanuel Macron in the April election.
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But the exercise, initiated by political activists including environmentalists, feminists and anti-racism groups, has been dogged by serious drawbacks.
The biggest is the upfront refusal by leading candidates Jean-Luc Melenchon, a hard-left politician, Yannick Jadot, a Green, and Socialist Anne Hidalgo to pay any attention to its result.
"As far as I'm concerned, the popular primary is a non-starter and has been for a while," Jadot said Saturday, while Melenchon has called the initiative "obscure" and "a farce".
Of the four highest polling candidates from the left (Mélenchon, Jadot, Taubira, Hidalgo), only one is willing to take part - former justice minister Christiane Taubira. pic.twitter.com/1NP6LHjiyG
— TLDR News EU (@TLDRNewsEU) January 27, 2022
Taubira in the spotlight
The best-placed politician to win the grassroots endorsement is former Socialist justice minister Christiane Taubira, who has said she would accept the primary's verdict.
A win for the well-respected Taubira could prompt her to declare a formal bid for the presidency.
But analysts would not rule out that Mélenchon, Jadot or Hidalgo could still emerge as the winner despite their rejection of the primary, which could lead to more confusion.
Polls currently predict that all left-wing candidates will be eliminated in the first round of presidential voting in April.
Macron, who has yet to declare his candidacy for re-election, is the favourite to win according to surveys, with the far-right's Marine Le Pen the likely runner-up.
But pollsters warn that the political landscape remains volatile, with the vote's outcome very difficult to call.
