Lille (AFP)

Authoritarian and brittle for some, brave and a woman of state for others ... Martine Aubry, candidate for a fourth term in Lille, is a figure of the left whose name remains attached to the 35-hour reform.

Today, 69 years old, the one who took the torch of Pierre Mauroy in 2001, however, said she would not represent again.

It was before the emergence of Emmanuel Macron. The man, his "liberalism", was already bristling at Bercy: "Macron, how do you say? Rude!" In 2015, the former boss of the PS justifies her ultimate political fight by the need to "help the left" and to "bulwark" the head of state.

A clever way to conceal that after 18 years at the head of the capital of Flanders, Martine Aubry did not suh -n wanted - to emerge dolphin. "If she is a candidate, it is by duty," decrypts a mayor of the city. "It's the only one who can save furniture in Lille", a socialist stronghold for a century.

His opponents are not soft: they say "authoritarian", "brittle", "sectarian", not knowing "not delegate" ... Her friend the communist Michelle Demessine recognizes that "consensus is not a word that goes with Martine Aubry ".

"I say things directly", evacuates the interested in conceding: "it is necessary to know to slice". She sees herself rather "hard with the powerful and gentle with the weak", trait inherited, she says, from her Basque mother.

On the left, too, she has become enmity. Parachuted to Lille in 1995, imposed by Mauroy to socialist barons, she failed to weave a network of elected officials. When she seized the PS in 2008 after a knife duel with Ségolène Royal, she failed to create sustainable current.

This does not prevent him from concluding pacts with his enemies of yesterday, as recently with Patrick Kanner. A rebibochage internal PS essential to hope for victory.

- "With the sulfateuse" -

Despite criticism of her governance, many acknowledge her "courage", see her as a "good living", "capable of true attention" and praise her qualities of "stateswoman", who "profoundly transformed Lille", in urban planning and culture.

"And we will never take Martine Aubry in lack of integrity," said Christian Decocq, leader of the opposition right from 2001 to 2008.

Born August 8, 1950 in Paris, the daughter of Jacques Delors is remarried with former president Jean-Louis Brochen. A first time minister (1991-1993), she became the emblematic number two (1997-2000) of the plural leftist government led by Lionel Jospin.

The 35 hours, which she carries from start to finish despite her initial reluctance, and the creation of the CMU and youth jobs give it an aura within the entire left. It is nevertheless fully part of social democracy, without any real ideological divergence with François Hollande or Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The enarque is well acquainted with the world of business - she made a visit to Péchiney - and the big bosses. Pragmatic, she built in 2008 a large municipal majority, to the centrists, far from the socialist orthodoxy of which she likes to be the guardian.

In 2011, the DSK package opens the doors of the Elysée. She embarked on the presidential battle, unlike her father who had given up, but lost the primary against Francois Hollande.

At the dawn of her last campaign, she appears isolated in her belfry. She lost her faithful right arm Pierre de Saintignon, who was swept away in March by the disease. It has to cope with the growing appetite of the Greens, who blame it for having missed the turn of the ecological transition even if, in the majority since 2001, they are accountants of the balance sheet.

"The boat is running aground," predicts Christophe Itier, former PS turned Walker. "There is always the risk of the fight too much but it has the resource", nuance Thierry Pauchet, candidate various right: "Martine is never better than in the adversity and that Violette Spillebout dares to challenge it gave back the cheat ".

In private, the mayor of Lille, known for his outspokenness, she did not let go during the investiture LREM of its ex-director of cabinet: "this campaign, it will be the sulfateuse"?

© 2019 AFP