The PS presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo is expected this Saturday, January 8 in Charente, in Jarnac, to meditate at the grave of former socialist president François Mitterrand. A visit to salute the memory of the one who united the left, while she struggles to do so.
More than a tribute, it is a tradition full of symbols for a socialist presidential candidate. Every year, on the occasion of the anniversary of François Mitterrand’s death, political figures flock to the Grands-Maisons cemetery.
For the time being, only Anne Hidalgo has been announced for the Charente pilgrimage this year. Expected this Saturday afternoon, the mayor of Paris will also visit the birthplace of François Mitterrand.
Several times mentioned, the arrival of François Hollande alongside the mayor of Paris was still uncertain last night. The other former President of the Socialist Republic, assiduous in Jarnac, was however present last year for the silent tribute of Emmanuel Macron.
A bad idea for Ségolène Royal
While Anne Hidalgo is stagnating at 3.5% according to a BVA poll for RTL and Orange published on Friday, Ségolène Royal, she believes that the pilgrimage to Jarnac is far from a good idea. The former candidate, the unfortunate finalist of the 2007 presidential election, refused to attend. Shortly after, however, it was she who became the party’s candidate against Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
“It brings bad luck Jarnac!” (…) It’s a big string and the big strings, it does not work ”, she affirmed in the columns of the Parisian. In addition, the former president of the Poitou-Charentes region is ruthless about the candidacy of Hidalgo. She believes that the latter should withdraw to support a better placed leftist candidate.
A turning point before a decisive week
Anne Hidalgo will benefit anyway from this tribute to the one who won the left to try to disseminate some solid political ideas. Despite the bitter failure of the popular primary following the refusals of the ecologist Yannick Jadot and the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it will also try to unite this fragmented left.
An arduous task which echoes the announcement of Christiane Taubira but which some supporters – optimists – of the left still dream of. The former Minister of Justice, a potential candidate not yet declared, will pronounce himself before January 15.
Jarnac thus constitutes a turning point in Anne Hidalgo’s campaign, a formal event before attacking a crucial week marked by the disclosure of his program Thursday, January 13 and by the announcement, for lack of rally, of his non-candidacy for the popular primary.