The former Minister of Justice announced her candidacy this Saturday in Lyon. She will submit to the result of the popular Primary, whose vote is due to take place from January 27 to 30.
Christiane Taubira (finally) lifts the blur. A little over a month after her enigmatic entry into the race for the Elysée, the former Minister of Justice formalized her candidacy for the presidency of the Republic this Saturday. “I am a candidate for the presidency of the Republic”, she said from Lyon, where she was speaking on the sidelines of a militant rally for the union of the left.
From the esplanade of the Grande Côte, emblematic place of the Revolt of the canuts of 1831, Christiane Taubira pleaded for “another mode of government, which knows how to listen and decide clearly” and claims to have heard “anger in the face of inequalities, injustices, discrimination”. The former member of Guyana also confirmed to submit, as planned, to the result of the popular Primary, whose vote must take place from January 27 to 30.
This speech is the culmination of a sequence started a month ago. During December, Christiane Taubira, after long months of silence, came to invite herself into the presidential campaign. In a three-minute video, broadcast on his social networks, the former Keeper of the Seals declared “to consider” introduce herself while ensuring that she “born [serait] not one more candidate” and that she “[mettrait] all [ses] forces in the last chances of union”. A somewhat ambiguous message. For more details, the former MP gave an appointment in mid-January. Here we are. “I honor the appointment that I had set for you for mid-January”, has also launched Christiane Taubira, at the beginning of her remarks.
A program outline
In the meantime, the Taubira clan has organized itself. The former minister multiplied what looked like campaign trips. One day in Ariège to talkorganic farming and the environment». Another in Nantes to address the issue of violence against women or in Vierzon in Cher to discuss health. “I propose that we build a national offer which guarantees all citizens a public health service thirty minutes from their place of residence” announced Taubira there. The only concrete measure put forward during his first month of semi-campaign.
From Lyon, Christiane Taubira has added several bricks to what is starting to look like a program. In particular, she assured that she wanted to convene a “salary conference” and raise the Smic to 1400 euros. She also promised “an income of 800 euros per month for five years” to students, thereby responding to the old demand for an autonomy allowance made by various student unions. On the health side, Christiane Taubira believes that“We will have to recruit 100,000 caregivers, and pay them properly and with dignity”.
Last weekend, traveling to Bondy, in Seine-Saint-Denis, Taubira had already said that she would submit to the popular Primary ballot. “I accept the rules of the popular primary and I will accept the verdict. I accept the risk of democracy,” she said, pointing “last chance for a possible union of the left”. Words confirmed this Saturday in Lyon. A few weeks earlier, during his first semi-campaign stroll, in Saint-Denis, the former Keeper of the Seals had already sent a friendly signal to the citizen process: “the popular Primary seems the last space where this union can be built”, she explained.
Only candidate declared strong in the popular Primary
It is that the former member of Guyana acts as the big favorite in this ballot where the candidates qualified for the vote were chosen by Internet users. She is the one who has received the most sponsorships and enjoys a certain aura with supporters of the “pop primary”.
Problem, Taubira should be the only one of the main candidates on the starting line to take into account the result of the poll. From the start, the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the ecologist Yannick Jadot assured us that we should not count on them. Socialist Anne Hidalgo, after speaking out “vs”, then “for” in December – a period when she called on her competitors on the left to unite around a primary – has now affirmed that, regardless of the result, she will continue “obviously” his campaign. “If in this primary the Greens around Yannick Jadot are not present, it is no longer called a primary, in any case it is not this primary which would allow to have this single candidate”, she regretted in Jarnac, in Charente, on the grave of François Mitterrand, taking note of the failure of his call for union.