Rouen (AFP)

After a long warm-up lap, the socialist mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo embarked on the race for the Elysee on Sunday in Rouen, a candidacy to "build a fairer France" and "reinvent the beautiful French model", which s 'adds to the many already identified on the left.

"Today, I am ready, that's why, with this warm force that surrounds me, humbly, aware of the gravity of this moment and to make our hopes the reality of our lives, I decided to to be a candidate for the presidency of the Republic ", launched at the end of the morning in front of a few hundred supporters Mrs. Hidalgo on the docks of Rouen, in the city of the socialist mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, a relative.

Rouen also makes it possible to give "a national dimension" to his candidacy, facing the trial in Parisianism which is made to the one who has been at the head of the capital since 2014.

"The five-year term that is coming to an end was to unite the French, it divided them as never before. It had to resolve social problems, it worsened them. It had to protect our planet, it turned its back on ecology," said the socialist.

- Legacy of the left -

The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo announces her candidacy for the presidential election on September 12, 2021 in Rouen Thomas SAMSON AFP

"I want with you to do everything to repair, (...), to build a more just France", put forward the mayor of Paris, claiming to be "the left of Jaurès, Blum and Mendès France, of Mitterrand ".

"This will be the meeting of the first woman President of the Republic with French women," she proclaimed, wishing for real equality of wages between men and women.

The candidate reiterated her promise to increase salaries, without specifically mentioning the doubling of teachers' salaries that she intends to implement.

She also wants to "make concrete the republican promise" and "that all the children of France have the same chance as that which was given to me", affirmed the Spanish immigrant arrived in France at 2 years and who chose the nationality French at 14.

In front of psychiatric caregivers met in the afternoon, she said her desire for a "massive plan for the hospital" and defended "successful decentralization" trusting elected officials.

Detailed proposals in his book "Une femme française" (Editions de l'Observatoire) to be published on September 15.

"She spoke of reconciliation, of appeasement, everyone must feel in their place, respected," said Nathalie Appérée, mayor of Rennes, who will be one of the elected officials with whom she will surround herself.

For Nathalie Le Meur, member of the Rouen Respire association, "Anne Hidalgo has made Paris a city turned towards ecology and we hope that it will make France a country also turned towards ecology".

On the right, the president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse, in contention for 2022, judged on BFMTV "legitimate" the candidacy of Anne Hidalgo but returned back to back the "socialist party, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen "for their" intoxication with public spending ".

Jordan Bardella, the number one during the presidential campaign of the National Rally, mocked the candidacy of the socialist who "transformed the districts of our capital into wasteland", echoing a handful of demonstrators who, from a distance, brandished a few moments a sign "Paris today, tomorrow France. Stop the rampage", in reference to the campaign against construction in the capital.

The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo on September 11, 2021 at the Fête de l'Huma in La Courneuve, near Paris Lucas BARIOULET AFP

He was speaking in Fréjus after the political back-to-school speech of another contender for the Elysee: Marine le Pen.

Both will be guests in the evening on TF1 and France 2 news.

Anne Hidalgo, clearly supported by the number one of the PS Olivier Faure, who greeted Sunday his "determination", and other heavyweights like the ex-minister Martine Aubry, is currently credited with 7 to 9% of the votes according to the polls, "but it is from today that everything begins", estimates Mathieu Klein, the mayor of Nancy (PS).

According to Senator PS Rémi Féraud, "it is the fall which will determine which candidate will bring a dynamic" in the face of the multiplication of contenders on the left, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the ex-socialist Arnaud Montebourg, the communist Fabien Roussel and the candidate from the environmentalist primary at the end of September.

© 2021 AFP