Reporting
Article reserved for subscribers
As many PS presidential candidates did before her, the mayor of Paris went to Charente lands on the occasion of the anniversary of the death of the socialist president to pay tribute to the one who came to power by bringing together political families.
In Jarnac, every January 8 there are two categories of people. On the one hand, there are the regulars, such as Béatrice Marre, former chief of staff of François Mitterrand at the Elysée, able to make the trip between the birthplace of the former president and the cemetery of the Grands-Maisons with their eyes closed. And there are the others, the novices, who are here for the first time. On this gloomy Saturday, for the 26th anniversary of the death of “Uncle”, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is one of them. At 62, the socialist candidate for the supreme election made her first pilgrimage to the Charente lands of Mitterrand, thus respecting the rite which requires (almost) all the PS contenders at the Elysee to make the trip in the presidential year. “Traditions matter”, smiles a relative of the elected socialist. “I came to remind people of my political affiliation”, summarizes the person concerned.
Anne Hidalgo is however clear: she is not the most mitterrandist of socialists. “Anne is imbued with various figures of the left, including Mitterrand obviously, but ideologically she has always been closer to Jacques Delors or L…