France’s leftist presidential hopefuls traded barbs on Monday after a prominent former minister won a grass roots “people’s primary” that failed to end the squabbling between left-wing forces ahead of the April vote.

The primary on Sunday picked former justice minister Christiane Taubira as the favourite to lead the left’s efforts to unseat President Emmanuel Macron in the election.

A total of 392,000 people took part in the four-day online poll organised by political activists including environmentalists, feminists and anti-racism groups.

Taubira, a long-time champion of the activist left, entered the contest as the favourite and emerged with the highest score on a scale from “very good” to “inadequate”.

The French Guiana-born left-winger, 69, was a progressive voice in former Socialist president Francois Hollande’s government and the driver behind the 2013 legalisation of same-sex marriage. She resigned after disagreeing with Hollande over anti-terror legislation.

Next in the primary rankings came the Green party’s Yannick Jadot, hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, and Euro MP Pierre Larrouturou, followed by Anne Hidalgo who is the mayor of Paris and the Socialist Party candidate.

“We want a united left, we want a strong left and we have a great road in front of us,” Taubira told activists after the result Sunday.

But the primary was in trouble from the start after Melenchon, Hidalgo and Jadot refused to have anything to do with it, or abide by its result.

Communist candidate Fabien Roussel said Monday he had no intention of backing Taubira who “has no election programme”.

– ‘Extremely disrespectful’ –

Asked about her ambition to a be a unity candidate, Roussel told the BFMTV broadcaster: “She said she didn’t want to add just another candidacy, and now she’s adding just another candidacy.”

Others charged that the primary had always been designed to endorse Taubira, rather than provide a real vehicle for unity.

“This could have been a rallying moment for the entire left, but it turned out to be just another candidacy,” said Hidalgo.

Melenchon said of Taubira that “she is stepping into the shoes that were made for her” by the primary, adding that “none of this is my concern”.

Jadot simply stated that he had “nothing” to say to the primary winner.

Taubira herself lashed out at the remarks by her rivals, saying they were “extremely disrespectful towards the people who organised this primary and those who chose to take part”.

But, she charged, “the fact is that nearly half a million people decided to play a role in the campaign”, also deploring on franceinfo radio the other candidates’ “haughty way to distance themselves from a democratic process”.

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 favourite to win the first round, with the far-right’s Marine Le Pen or right-wing contender Valerie Pecresse expected to make the run-off vote two weeks later.