Paris (AFP)

Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the PCF, proposed Saturday his candidacy for the nomination for the presidential election of 2022, during a national council which brought together by videoconference nearly 200 advisers.

This candidacy is, "in my opinion, the way to re-mobilize a disappointed, abstentionist electorate, to roll back the rights, the extreme right and their nauseating ideas," Mr. Roussel said in a letter addressed to activists on Thursday.

"Everything is done to install in people's minds the duel of the second round of this election (Editor's note Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen), without knowing all the candidates of the 1st round, their programs, without ever mentioning the legislative. Let us refuse this trap. ", insisted the number one Communist, elected to this function in 2018 on the promise that the PCF would have a candidate in 2022.

Mr. Roussel's candidacy will be formally proposed to "nearly 50,000 activists up to date", during a "national conference" of a thousand delegates, on April 10 and 11.

Then, the militants will vote on May 9 to say whether or not they want a Communist candidacy in the person of Mr. Roussel.

Two other Communists were also candidates for the candidacy: Emmanuel Dang Tran (activist in Paris XVth) and Grégoire Munck (Val-de-Marne).

During the two previous presidential elections, in 2012 and 2017, the PCF had supported the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of LFI, again a candidate in 2022.

The rivalry between the two men had materialized in recent days in the difficult negotiations for the regional in Hauts-de-France, Mr. Roussel, also deputy from the North, claiming the head of the list for the region.

Finally, an agreement was found between the four major left-wing parties (EELV, PCF, LFI and PS), all having decided to line up behind the ecologist MEP Karima Delli.

Emblematic region for the left because it had withdrawn there in 2015 in favor of the right to "block" the RN, Hauts-de-France is the only one to date where left-wing parties and environmentalists are united on the same listing.

npk / ib / nm

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