Paris (AFP)
Clémentine Autain, 48, head of the LFI / PCF list for the regional in Ile-de-France, is a passion for politics, an assertive feminist and figure of the left of the left, who hides behind a warm smile a solid determination.
"I got involved in a resolute and enthusiastic manner in this battle in Ile-de-France," writes Ms. Autain in her latest book, Pouvoir vivre en Ile-de-France (Le Seuil).
"What decided me was first of all the feeling that my political career and my commitments within our territory, for more than 20 years, could constitute an asset for my political family and to lead the region".
No way for this "artist's daughter", who led her first political battle against the Gulf War (1991) and began politics by activating at the UNEF and the Union of Communist Students, to let herself be discouraged by polls giving her 11% of the vote, a small point above the fateful 10% mark, below which she would be eliminated.
In contention with two other leftist lists, those of Julien Bayou (EELV) and Audrey Pulvar (PS), Clémentine Autain affirms that hers is "the most solid", Communists and Insoumis having "the electorate most assured of come and vote ".
"The rally will be in the second round", behind her, she hopes, a hope that the ecologist and the socialist (about 10% each according to the polls) maintain for themselves.
With her opponents, this mother of two with an affable physique, short blond hair, blue eyes, uses a sharp vocabulary.
In his eyes, Valérie Pécresse, the outgoing president (Libres!) Is "the Bardella of the beautiful neighborhoods", in reference to another opponent, Jordan Bardella, head of the RN list for the region.
"Ms. Pécresse has embarked on a Lépine competition for far-right ideas," especially on security, she says.
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Daughter of singer and sympathizer of the far left Yvan Dautain and actress Dominique Laffin, died at 33, Clémentine Autain, who, as a child, appeared in several films alongside her mother (notably Les petits Câlins, by Jean- Marie Poiré), has a long political career behind her: before becoming a Member of Parliament in 2017 (from Seine-Saint-Denis), she was municipal councilor in Sevran, regional councilor Front de Gauche d'Ile-de-France.
From 2001 to 2008, she was deputy mayor of Paris, responsible for youth.
Bertrand Delanoë (PS) had noticed her as she tried to conquer the town hall of the 17th arrondissement, calling her right-wing opponent Françoise de Panafieu a "great bourgeoisie, with appalling class contempt".
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During the 2012 presidential election, she was spokesperson for Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
At 22, Clémentine Autain was raped by a man armed with a knife on the outskirts of the University of Paris VIII, rape that she disclosed in 2006, during the presidential pre-campaign, as "a way to bring the issue of violence into the debate "and to fight against the" taboo on rape ".
"This trauma has shaken up my personal and activist life" and "I have become in two years an active activist for the emancipation of women", she writes in her latest book.
"I was no longer alone but part of a collective history, that of the oppression of women," adds this holder of a DEA in history devoted to the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF).
She later founded the Mix-Cité association, "a mixed movement for equality between the sexes", then, in 2012, organized the manifesto of the 313 + I declare to have been violated +, relayed by Le Nouvel Observateur.
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After the 2016 New Year's sexual assaults in Cologne, by migrants, Clémentine Autain created controversy with a tweet in which she invited not to amalgamate mass sexual violence and Islam.
"Between April and September 1945, two million Germans raped by soldiers. Is it the fault of Islam?" She asks.
His opponents criticize him for not having a word of compassion for the victims.
Ms. Autain is also a spokesperson for the Ensemble !, linked to LFI, and directs an anti-liberal journal, Regards.
In the Assembly, she is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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