Ira, won’t you? Until the last minute, nobody knew on the left, or even in her close team, what Christiane Taubira would really announce. It was finally in a video message of a little over three minutes, posted Friday, December 17 at the end of the morning on social networks, that the former Minister of Justice put an end to the suspense: “I see the impasse. I have always said that I will take my responsibilities. For that, I plan to be a candidate for the presidential election of the French Republic.”
Taubira, eighth candidate on the left in 2022, after Mélenchon, Jadot, Hidalgo, Roussel, Montebourg and the two Trotskyists Arthaud and Poutou? No : “I will not be another candidate. I will put all my strength into the last chances of the union”, warned the former member of Guyana by giving an appointment to the “mid-January” for the rest of the events.
With this quasi-declaration of candidacy, the former minister of François Hollande does not in fact surprise many people. The little music of a presidential statement has indeed returned with insistence in recent weeks on the side of the staffs of the various candidates on the left. According to several of his relatives contacted by franceinfo, “Christiane Taubira has been in combat for a long time and has perhaps never even ceased to be since she became involved in politics”.
The almost candidate has indeed been consulting everywhere for nearly two years. The citizens’ collective Taubira for 2022, whose Facebook page has 93,000 subscribers, is actively working on its candidacy, via local committees throughout France. “We are trying to rally the troops so that the conditions for her victory are met. Christiane Taubira is a pugnacious person and a great lady right in her principles who is the only one able to unite on the left”, launches Farah Ariche, the coordinator of the local Paca-Corse committee.
The former Minister of Justice made a point of meeting the members of his national support collective in October, in Paris. An exchange “of very high quality which spoke volumes about our champion’s ambitions for 2022”, says Farah Ariche. “She told us that our momentum was important and that we had to get in line of battle for the future. She also welcomed the fact that the members of the collective are mainly young people”, she says.
To prepare for her candidacy in the shadows, the one who won only 2.32% of the vote in the 2002 presidential election also discussed several times with the organizers of the popular primary, this citizens’ initiative which aims to bring out a single candidate embodying all the sensibilities of the left in the presidential election.
The last meeting was on November 29 at a dinner whose location was kept secret until the last moment. “She told us that she wanted to participate in this battle for France because she is terrorized by the fact that the extreme right monopolizes the political debate. But as this great woman whom we respect a lot is a permanent secret, we could not not know what his intentions were. On the other hand, we do know his very strong will to participate in our primary “, explains to franceinfo Samuel Grzybowski, one of the spokespersons for the popular primary.
Even if she does not mention it directly in her candidacy video, Christiane Taubira is betting everything on this unprecedented method of designation to impose herself, in the event of victory, as the ultimate resort to the gathering of the left behind her candidacy in 2022.
“Her first commitment is to work for the union and she wishes to do so by participating in the popular primary. When we see the inability of political parties today to create the conditions for a rally, she thinks that it is the only way for the left to get back into the race “, confirms to franceinfo one of his rare official supporters, Christian Paul, former socialist deputy “rebellious” during the five-year term of François Hollande.
Besides Christian Paul, the one who dreams of an icon of the left can count on a handful of political supporters: Erwann Binet, former PS deputy from Isère and rapporteur for the text on marriage for all in 2014 to the National Assembly; Fabien Bazin, president of the departmental council of Nièvre; or Olivia Fortin, deputy mayor of Marseille. His trip on November 27 in the city of Marseille, at the invitation of the mayor PS Benoît Payan, to pay tribute to the writer Gaston Crémieux shot in 1871 for his participation in the Municipality of Marseille, was not trivial.
“We will see if the mayor of Marseille gives him his support. But what is certain is that Marseille plays an important role, with people who believe in its ability to bring people together.”
Christian Paul, former PS deputy and support of Christiane Taubirato franceinfo
It remains to be seen whether the former minister will really succeed in convincing all the candidates of the left to participate in this popular primary which is to take place between January 27 and 30.
The willingness of Anne Hidalgo to participate, just like probably her former colleague in the government Arnaud Montebourg, is one of the conditions for the holding of the poll. But the categorical refusals of the ecologist Yannick Jadot, the communist Fabien Roussel and the “rebellious” Jean-Luc Mélenchon risk compromising the organization of such a primary. Even in the camp of the mayor of Paris, yet in great difficulty in the polls and therefore desperate to discuss with the other candidates on the left, we are very critical of Christiane Taubira’s initiative.
“She is a character who believes herself to be providential. But I remind you that she disappeared from political life for six years while others on the left remained in the fight to win intermediate elections such as municipal or regional” , tackle a tenor from the PS, ensuring that Christiane Taubira would have received “dozens of calls from the responsible left to dissuade her from going there”. Others wonder about “its cruel lack of program for 2022”, or still cannot digest her refusal to call for vaccination the inhabitants of Guyana, where she is from.
By meeting the French “in mid-January”, Christiane Taubira leaves herself a month to see if the mayonnaise around her candidacy can take. It relies in particular on the good image that it sends to supporters of the left. According to a recent Ipsos poll for France 2, 46% of them would be ready to give him their votes, against 47% for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and only 38% for Yannick Jadot and 37% for Anne Hidalgo. According to the same survey, she would be the second candidate “the most competent” on the left, again just behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
With four months of the presidential election, time is running out to give a content to a possible candidacy and to present a program worthy of the name. If she herself has set the next deadline in mid-January, she does not refrain, according to her relatives, from speaking earlier. But as often with Christiane Taubira – she had hesitated to run for the presidential election of 2017 and the Europeans of 2019, before giving up – the suspense could remain intact until the end.