Solo or via a primary: in what context could Christiane Taubira be a presidential candidate?

Christiane Taubira pushes the left a little more into the blur. This Friday in a video posted on social networks, she said she was considering running for the next presidential election. At first glance, the former Minister of Justice would therefore add one more name to the already very long list of candidates on the left. But she specifies in her statement that she will not be “not one more candidate”. At a time when the left is scattered between several candidates, for a low total of around 25% of the voting intentions in the first round, she adds: “I will put all my strength into the last chances of the union”.

Thus, the former Minister of Justice seems to rule out the hypothesis of launching if she does not succeed in rallying to her the other candidates, in particular the PS candidate Anne Hidalgo, her ex-college Arnaud Montebourg and the ecologist Yannick Jadot. But the latter confirmed at a press conference that he had some “a little enough of these candidacies which potentially add to each other”. The union will be difficult to achieve, Christiane Taubira has a month to achieve it, since she gave “see you in mid-January”.

This indication of time is important, because Christiane Taubira has until January 15 to say whether she wishes to participate in the popular primary. Scheduled for the end of January 2022, this citizens’ initiative aims to designate a common left-wing candidate for the presidential election. Nearly 245,000 people have already registered to decide between the ten preselected personalities, including Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Yannick Jadot, François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain or Christiane Taubira.

“We welcome the position of Ms. Taubira”, welcomed its organizers this Friday, calling on the former minister to “participate in the People’s Primary vote” and “to win social justice and ecology in 2022”. But there again, in order not to divide, Christiane Taubira will have to make sure that in the event of victory, her adversaries agree to withdraw and campaign behind her. And vice versa.

Finally, Christiane Taubira could take part in the left-wing primary project desired by Anne Hidalgo, outside the popular primary.

This Friday, the mayor of Paris estimated “that what Christiane Taubira said this morning is valid” this project. “Let us debate in front of our citizens (…) in a loyal way, with those who want to govern together as well as with those who do not want to govern with others”, called the candidate invested by the Socialist Party, who herself has not given up participating in the popular primary.