The mayor of Paris and PS candidate for the presidential election spoke in “Liberation” about her campaign, her chances of winning, her (non) alliances, but also about Christiane Taubira and Yannick Jadot. A brief overview.
“She texted me. I answered him very kindly and very politely. And if that was where the whole problem of the PS candidate lay? Because this exit of Anne Hidalgo in “Liberation” following the victory of Christiane Taubira in the popular primary shows the determination of the socialist to present herself at all costs. Anne Hidalgo, who speaks of her as “the legitimate candidate of this republican, social-democratic and ecological left”, has however – and this since the start of the campaign – a persistent difficulty in taking off in the polls. Worse, it regresses over the months.
According to the IFOP-Fiducial survey for Paris Match, LCI and Sud Radio, the candidate collected on February 3, only 3% of the voting intentions in the first round (with a victory forecast of 1% …), the highest score low ever recorded by the socialist party. Far from defeatism, Anne Hidalgo explained that “the campaign is just beginning and interests few people because of the Covid”, adding that she did not want to participate in the “premium for vulgarity, excess, violence” as she can see in some speeches. If it is true that the 2022 election does not amass a crowd and that the Covid is a major cause, the mayor of Paris still cannot compete with her political opponents, who are much more settled and listened to.
The one who said she was advancing “much more radical measures than those of France Insoumise” such as increasing the minimum wage by 15% for example, still does not convince the French people polled. Still according to the IFOP-Fiducial survey, on the question of credibility regarding the major themes of the campaign, Anne Hidalgo is at 2% (her highest score) for health and education issues. It collects 0% on the fight against terrorism; the same note for the fight against illegal immigration. By way of comparison, her best enemy Christiane Taubira is ahead of her in all areas: on health and education, she triples her score (6%). What to do, suddenly, when one represents a historical party to go up the slope?
According to her words, Anne Hidalgo is counting on the following strategy: “I am addressing the middle classes, the working classes”. However, by diving into it in detail, still according to the survey, only 3% of the “middle classes earning below 1450 euros” give it their vote and for the “modest categories”, we are at 2% . By comparison, the outgoing president sees 25% of the “middle classes” and “lower categories” vote for him.
Taubira’s candidacy ‘adds confusion’
About a potential alliance with Christiane Taubira, the mayor of Paris is categorical: “No. Absolutely not. Unfortunately, it constitutes one more candidacy and adds confusion. Ditto for Yannick Jadot and the environmentalist party which she describes as follows: “They are breaking models. We are supporting transitions”, not forgetting to highlight his municipal mandate at the head of the capital to support his reasons: “I have life-size experience of the transformation of a city that has become a reference in terms of mobility”, before driving the point home on the question of social housing: “housing is opposed to ecology. As a reminder, by adding the voting intentions of these three candidates on the left, we reach 12%.
Another interesting point put forward by “Liberation”: the entourage of Anne Hidalgo. While the mayor of Paris had decided to propel new faces onto the front of the stage – Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes or even Mickaël Delafosse, mayor of Montpellier -, she seems to have changed her mind, recalling the “elephants” at the rescue, like the former deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhône Patrick Mennucci, the former Minister of the City, Youth and Sports Patrick Kanner, but also the senator Rachid Temal. Another strong support for the candidate, her husband, Jean-Marc Germain, former deputy for Hauts-de-Seine and “rebellious”, who wants more than anything to block Emmanuel Macron, whom he describes as “subject to society of consumption”, he who had ignored the arguments of the deputy who had come out against working on Sundays. The couple also went up against the outgoing president for having plundered many thinking heads on the left and for having, in fact, surfed the tsunami which sank the socialist party in the legislative elections of 2017.
Read also:Anne Hidalgo and Jean-Marc Germain, duet for a solo
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