Montpellier (AFP)
She has "the foundations", she has "the values", she has "the team".
"Nothing" no longer prevents Anne Hidalgo from announcing her candidacy for the presidential election, as she said during the parliamentary days of the PS in Montpellier.
It should be for Sunday, assures his entourage.
"We need foundations", explained the mayor of Paris to parliamentarians.
"We are at a time when I have not declared my candidacy, it is neither hesitation, nor coquetry. We can not do anything great if we do not make sure that we have the foundations, these points of agreement to be able to speak to the country. I believe that today, we have this capacity, "she continued, while rumors of a declaration have been buzzing for several days. imminent.
“What is preventing you from declaring yourself today?” Asks a journalist.
"Nothing", answers Anne Hidalgo.
She should do it during a trip to the provinces on Sunday, before a television newscast in the evening, according to her entourage.
After having assembled last July in Villeurbanne its "French team of mayors and local elected officials", with whom it intends to build its program, then the socialist activists in Blois during the summer days of the PS in August, she had an appointment with some 80 deputies, senators and socialist European parliamentarians in Montpellier, whose work she praised in the parliamentary groups, which will "nourish the prospect of this great democratic meeting" that is the presidential election.
Anne Hidalgo in Montpellier on September 7, 2021 Pascal GUYOT AFP
She defended the "team" which surrounds her, elected officials, such as the mayor of Montpellier Michael Delafosse, who "have an intimate knowledge of what people's lives", a "generation of elected representatives from the middle classes , popular categories or immigration ", like her, and" embodies "" the republican promise ".
For almost an hour and a half of discussion, she presented the basics of her project: putting the basics of school back at the heart of Republican promises, rethinking the question of work and the new protections to be provided, decentralizing more and giving back from autonomy to communities, regaining European leadership in the area of ecological transition ... She also said she was in favor of the right to vote at 16 and a minimum youth income, but "not for a Sixth Republic".
"The ecological transition, the transformation of our economic and energy model, this is the number one issue, but this ecological transition must not be done to the detriment of the middle classes and popular categories," she said. insisted, believing that "for that it will be necessary to put the package, all the means. The five years which come are decisive".
She promised "strong, credible proposals, which make you dream but which can be implemented".
"We know that in politics nothing is written in advance", she added, believing "to be able to reassure the French but also to surprise them".
The president of the Socialists and Allies group in the National Assembly Valérie Rabault and the leader of the Socialists, Ecologists and Republicans group in the Senate Patrick Kanner had earlier reaffirmed their support for the mayor of Paris, in the presence of Michaël Delafosse and the President of the Occitanie region Carole Delga.
"Strongly that we can fully enter into the action", declared the member for Tarn-et-Garonne Valérie Rabault, wishing that the "long-distance race" which begins is "a launching pad" to give a majority of the left to the legislative elections of June 2022.
For the senator and former Minister of Sports Patrick Kanner, this meeting with parliamentarians was an opportunity to hear Anne Hidalgo "set the course" and "say hope".
Other stages still mark the path of Anne Hidalgo: the release of her book "a French woman" on September 15 and the PS congress on September 18 and 19.
Anne Hidalgo in Montpellier on September 7, 2021 Pascal GUYOT AFP
An internal vote of socialist activists, promised by the first secretary Olivier Faure, will take place after the congress and will make it possible to distinguish it from its potential competitors, including the mayor of Le Mans Stephane Le Foll.
Anne Hidalgo is currently only credited with 7 to 9% of the vote according to the polls, but her supporters, Olivier Faure in the lead, affirms that "the match is not over".
"We have a chance to win", assures Senator Rémi Féraud, close to the mayor of Paris, who warns: Anne Hidalgo is "a beast of the countryside".
© 2021 AFP