Hamon and Valls advance from French socialist primary, Macron makes ground

Education minister Benoît Hamon won the first French presidential primary for the Socialist party on Sunday, beating favourite and former prime minister Manuel Valls.

Both Hamon and Valls have made it to next Sunday’s second round with 36% and 31% of the vote, respectively, as they compete to be the party’s candidate in this year's presidential race.

Valls had been the architect of President Francois Hollande’s pro-business policies in an attempt to stimulate the economy, while Hamon was fired from Hollande’s government in 2014 for criticising the very same policies.

Former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg failed to make to the next round coming in third place with 17.5% of the vote, from a turnout between 1.6m and 1.7m people.

Polls have indicated that no Socialist candidate will make it to the final run-off in May for the presidency, with the eventual showdown being between far-right Front National's Marine Le Pen and Les Républicains’ Thatcherite candidate François Fillon.

However, former finance minister Emmanuel Macron, who is running as an independent and is pitching to the centre, has been making ground recently.

According to polls, if left-winger Hamon wins the Socialists’ next round, beating Valls who is also appealing more to the centre, it could boost Macron’s chances of making to the final round.

Fillon, who plans to relax labour laws, slash business taxes and scrap the 35-hour working week in a bid to boost France’s growth, which has remained sluggish since the financial crisis, is tipped to win the presidential election, with expectations that people would rally to vote for him to defeat the far-right Le Pen, a repeat of the 2002 election when Jacques Chirac confidently beat her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, but could face competition.

Analysts at Barclays said that Hamon appears to be in a good position to win more than 50% of the votes next Sunday, and given his leftist position within the Socialist party, it would probably dissuade a fraction of sympathisers of the center-left from voting for him in April and eventually support Macron.

By contrast, the bank's analysts felt Hamon would probably be able to attract the support of more leftist voters, who could have been tempted by independent Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of the radical left.

The bank said that Macron is “now seen as a serious challenger to Fillon and Le Pen, who have been the two favourites for reaching the second round”, as according to the polls by Odoxa and L’Express, he is now the most popular politician, with 40%. According to another poll by Ipsos Sopra Macron is approaching the two frontrunners with 20% just after Le Pen with 27% and Fillon with 26%.

However, Barclays said that one factor remains unknown, whether the centrist François Bayrou will eventually enter the presidential race. If Bayrou decides not to run, it would likely favour Macron’s chances, and given that the nature of the French voting system it would make it difficult for Le Pen to win in the second round, Fillon and Macron would appear to be in good positions.