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“It’s my first victory in my entire life. For Bernie in 2016, I fought in six states – [faced] six defeats. I supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2017. He lost. I supported Mélenchon in 2022 also. He lost.” So says Clement Pairot – a political organizer for France’s Nouveau Front Populaire, with over a decade of experience in calls, agitation, and elections – and a CallHub customer.
‘My first victory’ is Clement’s humble way to begin a conversation about one of the calling campaigns for New Popular Front. This four-party left-green alliance was the surprise bestseller of the 2024 French parliamentary snap elections. The alliance returned 182 deputies to a 577-seat assembly now split between three large opposing blocs, none with a majority.
We sat down with Clement to find out how CallHub helped him win, the lessons he learned from the tools, and his understanding of politics and victory.
Please note: Clement uses ‘we’ frequently and stresses that the actions he speaks about include the efforts of more than 50 dedicated organizers.
Clement and his defeats
Clement began his political organizing career in 2015. “I discovered organizing working for Avaaz.org, during a climate march in Paris just before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in 2015,” he mentions.
However, the climate change march had relatively low stakes. In 2016, Clement went to America and jumped right into the hottest fray—to try and help get Bernie Sanders elected President as a full-time volunteer who worked across six states for six months.
“Six defeats, actually, but six amazing races,” Clement adds before I could even ask the follow-up question. “But I refined my understanding of innovative organizing – in terms of action, organic organizing, and ‘big’ organizing.”
By 2022, now back in France, Clement had learned quite a few organizing lessons, and his growth coincided with the growing pains of Primaire Populaire.
Launched in 2022, Primaire Populaire was an effort to unite France’s famously divided leftist/ecological parties and movements.
“We launched a petition, and it didn’t work. Firstly, viral spreading on social networks is a myth. It’s built 99% of the time – and we didn’t build it enough. And our timing was suboptimal – one full year before the French Presidential election, there were mostly two categories of people: those who already knew who they would vote for and didn’t like our initiative, and those who didn’t care about the election yet, and then don’t care about our initiative either.” Clement clarifies, looking back at it all. But there were some positives.
“We ended up with a volunteer community of 10,000 active volunteers, 400,000 supporters, and some 40,000 donors. This is unprecedented in France. And this was built slowly over eight months.”
The campaign with CallHub
But their moment in the sun came in June 2024 – when President Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections after facing a crushing defeat in the 2024 European Parliament elections. The government was dissolved on June 9, and elections were called for June 30, 2024.
Suddenly, the Right was cresting a huge wave, the Centerists were out of favor, and the Left was disorganized.
Premier Populaire was resurrected as Victoires Populaires on June 10, and it was time for another fight. One that Clement and all the organizers would win this time.
Since they were recruiting volunteers from the start, just 48 hours after the new elections were announced, Victoires Populaires were already organizing their first Zoom meeting with 1,000 people. That was even before the left parties announced their unity under the new brand of Nouveau Front Populaire.
During the 2022 campaign, Clement and his team used NationBuilder alone—using a list generated by NationBuilder. But the CRM alone couldn’t do everything they wanted, including the calls. They then shifted to CallHub to take their outreach to the next level.
Clement and his team were tackling France’s proxy voting system as the key concern in their area. If you cannot come to the polling booth to vote in France, you can fill in some paperwork and nominate someone else to vote in your name.
The calls set up
“Switching to CallHub was a game changer. Features like easy-to-share metrics were extremely satisfying. But what was critical for me was the dynamic script and the ability for volunteers to select ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and move to the next section.” Clement says.
Since then, CallHub has expanded our metrics even further, giving users a granular view of every aspect of their calling campaigns. CallHub metrics allow you to pinpoint calling trends and see gaps in your calling campaign – so you can make sure you are always:
- Calling in the best times
- Improving your answer rates
- Fine-tuning your script for maximum impact
Our dynamic scripts allow this fine-tuning at every point of the conversation, letting you provide your calling volunteers with multiple pre-set options to move the conversation forward, depending on how the receiver answers.
Your calling agents can just jump to the appropriate section and continue the conversation there – instead of trying to tailor an answer on the spot.
It works for those without any training as well. “It (dynamic scripts) makes training less patronizing because you can just tell volunteers ‘we’re helping you. There is a script – it’s easier for you to follow and is efficient. So take good care to follow it.’ But actually, the software makes you follow it, ensuring impactful conversations.” says Clement.
Of the roughly 12,000 people who volunteered during the month, Clement’s team onboarded some 4000 through CallHub to call potential voters. In total, they made 275,000 calls, leading to 50,000 conversations.
The team had a script with some questions, and Clement says they connected with about 22,000 people for such vote proxies—gathering about 30,000 voters right there.
Goosebump moments
“The one that gave me goosebumps was a conversation a volunteer had with a grandma,” Clement recalls.
“She was so sad because she was afraid of the Far Right and Emmanuel Macron’s ‘centrist’ approach. Her granddaughter is a trans woman, and the grandma was afraid of how she would be treated.”
The volunteer convinced the grandma that they were doing everything possible to ensure her granddaughter’s safety in France. The conversation was electrifying for the team, and it reminded them of the real stakes they were battling for.
“That moved the entire crew of volunteers on that day. And even four months afterward, I’m having goosebumps sharing with you,” Clement says.
Lessons learned during the calls
“If I were to re-do that campaign, I would make the script much shorter and more straightforward, and I would make sure that we book a volunteer shift an hour before other campaigners to be the first callers of the day,” Clement says.
In the end, whatever the election results, Clement says he remains satisfied with their efforts to change minds and gather votes. Though he is disappointed with how the ‘parties’ negotiated once the results came out and dropped the ball in forming the government, he leaves us with the valuable lessons he learned through this victory.
