Benoît Hamon

Benoît Hamon (French: [bənwa amɔ̃]; born 26 June 1967) 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.

Hamon joined the Socialist Party in 1988 and by 1993 became the leader of the Young Socialist Movement, serving until 1995. In 2004, Hamon was elected MEP for East of France and during his time as MEP he ran for leadership of the Socialist Party, losing in the first round of the Reims Congress and endorsing the Eurosceptic option in the 2005 European Constitution referendum.

In 2012, Hamon was elected to the National Assembly in Yveline's 11th constituency, though he resigned after being appointed as junior minister for the Social Economy at the Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and External Trade by President François Hollande. Hamon was then appointed Minister of National Education in Manuel Valls' new government. He was removed from this position alongside Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg when they both publicly opposed the government economic policy. He later returned to the National Assembly in September of the same year, running in his previous constituency. Hamon's stint in the National Assembly consisted of voting in line with a group labelled the Frondeurs, a socialist group opposed to the social-liberal politics of Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls.

In 2016, Hamon declared his intention to run in the Socialist Party primary for the 2017 presidential election. Being dubbed the "Jeremy Corbyn of the French-left" and "reinventing the French left", Hamon ran on ideas accused of being "far-out" such as legalising cannabis, taxing automation and introducing a universal basic income. Hamon eventually won in a run-off against former Prime Minister Manuel Valls and campaigned on similar ideals in the general election, though only gathering 6.36 per cent of votes. Shortly following his loss in the legislative election, Hamon left the Socialist Party in July 2017 to found his own political party called 1 July Movement, later renamed Génération.s.

After failing to win any seats in the 2019 European elections, Hamon will step back to reflect on his and his movement's political future.