Paris (AFP)
Former star journalist, Audrey Pulvar took the step towards politics during the municipal elections of 2020: propelled by the PS to lead the regional campaign in Île-de-France, the neophyte puts forward an "environmentalist-social" profile to bring back the region on the left.
"Today, people see me as a politician. I don't: I see myself as a committed citizen."
In substance as well as in form, the candidate for "Ile-de-France in common", 49, cultivates her difference.
Her casual chic look, with her feminist "Woman at war" t-shirts?
"I will not, if I am president, suddenly, start to wear half-heels, to be in a pantsuit ...", she replied to AFP.
Basically, the deputy for sustainable food and agriculture of the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo claims to be a "social ecologist", in that order.
"I am an ecologist who wants to make a success of the ecological transition through questions of social justice. I am not someone who does social and who puts ecology in it. It's very different", assures- it.
Although she does not have her card with the PS, her profile was essential for Senator Rémi Féraud, leader of the Socialists in the Council of Paris: "A woman, on the left, very environmentalist, member of no party and can suddenly unite the left ".
- Fireproof -
His first campaign as head of the list already leaves him with two bad memories.
In mid-February, she finds herself in tears at the microphone of France Inter, forced to react to the revelations about her father, a figure of Martinican unionism who died in 2008, and accused by her cousins of pedocriminality.
She then presents herself as the "daughter of a monster".
At the end of March, it was his remarks on "single-sex meetings" that drew him anger on the right, but also on the left.
She recognizes a "perhaps awkward" remark.
The one who was the companion, at the beginning of the 2010s, of Arnaud Montebourg had for a long time "not at all the intention to play politics".
But the 2017 presidential election was a game-changer, she says.
"The decision I made to leave the profession of journalist was motivated by the score of the FN and the media treatment of the campaign", says the one who claims a personal "path" through her presidency of the Hulot Foundation (2017 -2019).
"I did not go from journalist to politician overnight," she still argues.
- News "in his image" -
From her first career, Audrey Pulvar will remain as the first black woman to have presented a newscast on a terrestrial channel.
Her ex-colleague at France 3 Francis Letellier retains from her "her strength of character".
"She didn't let herself be dictated by the conduct of her newspaper. The 19/20 she was doing was in her image."
Even if it means getting angry with his superiors, remembers Mr. Letellier, for whom this indocility deprived Audrey Pulvar of the presentation of an 8:00 p.m.
"It will remain among the few small narcissistic wounds," she concedes.
If the appointment of Mr. Montebourg in the Ayrault government in 2012 cost her her place at France Inter and in the program "On n'est pas couché", she bounced back at Inrocks where she was appointed managing editor.
She only held out for 6 months against the boss Matthieu Pigasse, whom she had challenged from the outset by claiming her independence.
"She had many flaws, she was not necessarily made to manage a newspaper, but on the other hand she was very courageous", recalls a former journalist of the editorial staff.
- Short nights -
And a hard worker, notes Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris Center whom she was seconding on her list: "When I tease her, I tell her: you are a polard".
This resident of the left bank sleeps little.
At dawn, she goes to the quays of the Seine for her jogging.
His need to let off steam - running, yoga, gym, rowing, boxing - is still hampered by a long Covid dating back to spring 2020.
"Regional president, I might have a little less time ...", she smiles.
© 2021 AFP