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The Socialist parliamentarian aims to represent the "total left" or the "real left" in the French presidential campaign. Hamon's victory in the Socialist Party primary amounts to the revenge of the "rebels" over the party's executive.
All his plans have been carefully laid. Even though it has come as a complete surprise, Benoît Hamon's success owes nothing to chance.
This is clear by simply looking back at the career of this eternally young man who will turn 50 in June to see that for years he has been preparing to have an influence over the Socialist Party - if not to lead it.
The first stage of the quest has already been achieved. Hamon is now the Socialist Party candidate for the presidential election following in the line of François Mitterand, Lionel Jospin, Ségolène Royal and François Hollande.
"The issue is the left in 2017," he said previously expressing concern, several months prior to the Socialist Party Congress in Poitiers in June 2015.
Should the party defend the line of Hollande's government or should it defend its supporters? Hamon became the second person to sign a notorious "Motion B" at that congress, proposed by the "real left", which included the "rebels" and those close to the radical wing of the Party.
He was thus forced to leave the government and go back to being the parliamentary deputy for Yvelines in the poor suburbs of Trappes in north-central France.
Meanwhile, he criticized Socialist Party policy as being "without results", an executive lacking a "social conscience", and leaders who "spoke a foreign language", namely that of social liberalism.
He served in the ministry, social and solidarity economy from 2012 and then national education, for only five months during 2014. This forced him to remain publicly silent on many issues.
Ultimately, however, Hamon tired of seeking a softening of economic policy, broke with the government in order to regain his freedom of expression and to make his mark as a backroom operator in the Socialist Party.
His first objective was to renew links with the rebels, who had not been happy with his support for Hollande. He also struck up an alliance of convenience with Arnaud Montebourg and Manuel Valls in order to enable Valls to become Prime Minister in 2014.
Hamon's second objective was to reposition the party to the left after Valls contributed to its "political disarmament on labor, security and refugee issues".
On Sunday, Hamon came out the winner from this double challenge. The confrontation with Valls, between two competing visions of socialism and two social projects regarding the role of labor, and the conception of "laicity" turned to his advantage.
His victory was also that of a man, who, rising from parliamentary attaché to cabinet adviser, had made politics a profession since his earliest years.
Born in Saint-Renan in the Finistère region of Brittany, Hamon spent his childhood and youth between Brest, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre in the suburbs of Paris, and Dakar, Senegal.
He plunged into activist politics during the 1980s. During this period he became particularly involved with the Unef-ID independent student union, the Touche pas à mon pôte (Don't touch my friend) campaign organized by SOS Racisme.
He also took part in the demonstrations against the draft Devaquet law for university reform.
Hamon studied history and joined the Socialist Party in 1987, seeking to build on these activist experiences. Initially, he took part in the "Forum" clubs organized by young supporters of Michel Rocard, which were founded by Valls among others.
Later, he became president of the Young Socialist Movement, gaining autonomy for the movement from the party with the assistance of Rocard. As leader of this formation from 1993 to 1995, Hamon developed a lasting network of friendships and support.
By that time, he had already distanced himself from President François Mitterand, whose links with René Bousquet, secretary-general of police under the Vichy regime, he criticized.
In 1997, Hamon's left wing group separated from Socialist Party first secretary Hollande, and his legendary "synthesis", taking up the fight against this alongside Martine Aubry.
Aubrey, former minister for employment and solidarity who implemented the 35 hour week, took Hamon on as an adviser responsible for youth employment. She then offered Hamon the post of spokesperson for the Socialist Party of which she, became first secretary in 2008.
This was the year that Hamon began to become more heavily involved. Intending to write about socialism based on his own ideas, and picking up from Henri Emmanuelli, he led a motion at the Reims congress entitled Un monde d'avance (A world in advance).
This text condemned financial capitalism, liberal dogma and the refrain of "less government". The motion received the votes of 18.5% of militants while Hamon's candidacy for the first secretary position obtained more than 23%.
This was the critical moment when, aged 41, he laid the foundations of his current success. His efforts now became more successful in the wake of the failure of the New Party socialist tendency created by Arnaud Montebourg and Vincent Peillon in 2002.
The Hamon left continued to develop, first in the European Parliament to which he was elected in 2004, where he continued his battles against tax havens and "secret" banking, then with the "no" to the European constitutional treaty in 2005.
When Hamon accepted to become part of the Hollande government, the result was two laws relating to French daily life, one protecting consumers and the other encouraging the social and solidarity economy.
Finally, Hamon's left broke with the reformist branch embodied by Valls. He resigned as minister in August 2014, together with Arnaud Montebourg, following yet another request for softening economy policy.
Hamon could have backtracked and remained part of the government but, judging it to be weakened, he left in order to prepare the post-Hollande period.
Returning to his parliamentary seat, Hamon slowly laid the foundations of his dissidence as part of the "real left". He rejected the Macron law which aimed to promote economic growth as well as the El Khomri law on labor and stripping of nationality. Most importantly, he twice signed a censure motion against the Valls government.
In parallel with this, Hamon took up new battles like proposing a resolution to recognize the Palestinian state.
He also opened up a path towards the recognition of burnout as a professional illness. This amounted to a test run for his future universal basic income proposal.
Meanwhile, Hamon maintained good relations with President Hollande and Prime Minister Valls. However, the divorce was eventually consummated as a result of Valls's backing for labor law reforms, the stripping of nationality and the welcome for refugees.
Hamon was baptized and raised in Catholic schools from primary level to senior high school, a catechism student with the Marist brothers.
He thus recognizes that his religious education had "an impact" on who he is as well as a "significant influence" on his approach to certain issues such as that of migration.
He freely cites Pope Francis and his "incredibly positive message" calling for "solidarity, compassion, and hospitality".
Nevertheless, Hamon says that his "religious culture" did not "fulfill" him. He has also distanced himself from the Church's teaching on family and social issues.
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