Environment, social ... Hidalgo will launch its campaign for a new mandate in Paris - France 24

Paris (AFP)

Its competitors want to attack it on its balance sheet, it has refined its program and intends to roll out its first proposals on the ecology and the social: the outgoing PS mayor Anne Hidalgo is preparing Saturday to announce her candidacy for a new term in mayor from Paris.

At the end of December, she did not hide her impatience to descend into the arena, and told AFP that she was "looking forward". However, the elected socialist will be the last to launch out, hitherto following at a distance and with a certain greediness the first sometimes hazardous steps of its competitors, notably at LREM, undermined in the internal rivalry between Benjamin Griveaux and Cédric Villani.

It is therefore in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien posted online on Saturday evening, that Anne Hidalgo, elected in 2001 alongside Bertrand Delanoë, must announce her candidacy for a second term which was no longer a secret for anyone.

Friday, during the last ceremony of the vows of her mandate, she estimated that "if a mandate lasts six years, the transformations that we initiate will take place over a much longer time", thus calling to continue the adventure during the municipal elections in March.

"It's going to be a campaign with new things," assures a relative, "but which will be part of the continuity of the first mandate". And the story consists in saying that "the transformation of the city is not finished, even if a step has been taken".

"The campaign will be short and dynamic. Our desire is to make a difference as soon as we enter the campaign", adds to AFP the first secretary of the socialist federation of Paris, Rémi Féraud.

According to an Ifop poll commissioned by the team of Cédric Villani and relayed by the press in December, Anne Hidalgo tops the voting intentions with 22.5%, followed by Benjamin Griveaux, tied with candidate LR Rachida Dati ( 17%), ahead of Cédric Villani (14%) and the ecologist David Belliard (12.5%).

- "The rocket is launched" -

Candidate so far in the 15th arrondissement, Ms. Hidalgo, 60, will this time be in second position in the 11th arrondissement, where her outgoing majority ally, the EELV candidate David Belliard, is also running. A choice that is not to the taste of those around the ecologist.

Another novelty: the one that is still socialist, is supported this time by the platform "Paris en Commun" which includes socialists, elected representatives of Generations, communists and personalities from civil society including the former president of the social Samu Eric Pliez (candidate for the town hall of the 20th arrondissement) and former journalist Audrey Pulvar (on the lists of Paris Center).

"She does not want to give the feeling that she is the wife of an apparatus or a political party", analyzes with AFP the First secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure. No matter for the elected official, who "asked him to keep this city on the left".

And two months before the election, the outgoing mayor, allied with the PCF from the first round, does not want to neglect any theme (climate, environment, housing ...) and wishes to go straight away "to meet Parisians directly".

"The rocket is launched, we can no longer stop it," says a member of the extended team.

Its first outings will be in the northeast of the capital, popular districts whose votes are coveted by all the candidates.

Monday evening, Anne Hidalgo will go to activists and elected officials gathered in "Paris en Commun" to launch her campaign very officially.

Before the confrontation of ideas, his opponents intend to attack his record. Center-right candidate Pierre-Yves Bournazel denounces a mandate marked by "a degradation of the daily life of Parisians and too centralized governance". The LR candidate in the 14th arrondissement, Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée, criticizes "an expensive management with a debt of more than 6 billion euros".

"Anne Hidalgo puts an end to an unbearable suspense, ironically from her side Benjamin Griveaux. She will be able to propose during these next two months ideas to solve problems that she has not resolved or that she herself created at over the past 6 years. "

© 2020 AFP