Paris (AFP)

"Pugnacious", "indocile", but also "listening": approached for the position of Defender of rights, the president of the association for the fight against exclusion ATD-Fourth World, Claire Hédon, is described by the associative world as a "determined" activist, convinced that extreme poverty is a violation of fundamental rights.

This 57-year-old radio journalist is a "strong personality" whose "main subject is the discrimination suffered by poor people", underlines Florent Guéguen, of the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FNARS) - who brings together 870 associations and organizations fighting against exclusion.

Also a member of the National Consultative Ethics Council, Ms. Hédon is "sincerely rebellious against injustices and she lets nothing get by," added the association manager, who praised his fight against "poverty".

His appointment by the Elysée Palace, at the head of an institution which has recently changed into a watchdog of public freedoms, has yet to be ratified by the Parliament.

Claire Hédon has been a member for 27 years of ATD-Fourth World, and has chaired on a voluntary basis for five years this association which she discovered in 1992, through her profession as a journalist at Radio France Internationale (RFI), during a report on a street library in a Bangkok slum.

Public radio - where she still works today, as magazine manager - also led her to travel a lot in French-speaking Africa, for the program "Priorité santé", for which she was in charge from 2003 to 2017.

"When we do reports for RFI, we are led to rub shoulders with great poverty, in Africa and elsewhere. It is a humanist radio station, where empathy for plurality and diversity is part of the house DNA", explains journalist Anne-Cécile Bras, who also praises the "rigor" of her colleague.

For Christophe Robert, of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, the appointment of Ms. Hédon "sends a signal: the question of the poorest must also find its place in the fight against discrimination". "Because we can be sidelined because we are poor, or because we live at such an address," he said.

- Bridge between two worlds -

At the head of ATD-Fourth World, Ms. Hédon also fought, in 2016, to make poverty - more precisely "economic vulnerability" - a new criterion of discrimination, now sanctioned by law.

For the national delegate of the association, Paul Maréchal, "she has access to rights pegged to the body. She refuses injustice and prejudice". His appointment, he continues, will help "admit that extreme poverty is a violation of fundamental rights".

For Mr. Maréchal, one of the great qualities of the probable future Defender of rights is that she "lets people express themselves in depth" - "it is undoubtedly her former work as a journalist who taught her that", supposes he - and "that she knows how to be a bridge, to allow the meeting between worlds which ignore each other".

In September 2018, she had thus welcomed Emmanuel Macron in an ATD-Fourth World center in Seine-Saint-Denis, where he had spoken with people who were victims of precariousness.

"She has this attention for the smallest, the poorest," testifies Vincent Espejo, who himself experienced exclusion and sits today on the association's board of directors. "She is very attentive to people," adds his wife Élodie. "With this nomination, the movement loses a beautiful person," she smiles.

For Paul Maréchal, Claire Hédon, beyond the situation of the poorest, "will now have to commit to the rights of all". "This is the whole struggle of our association: if our society succeeds in ensuring that the most excluded are taken into account, it is the whole of society that grows".

If Ms. Hédon's appointment is confirmed, the practical work could start quickly. The one who will succeed Jacques Toubon will have to be "very active on future dependency laws", stressed this Wednesday, recalling that the institution was preparing to issue a framework decision on the rights of the elderly in the fall. retirement homes.

© 2020 AFP