"She is the best candidate", for some.

"We feel that it doesn't take", for the others.

In Guadeloupe, Anne Hidalgo's campaign continues under the radar.

During her trip, the candidate, credited with between 1.5% and 3% of the voting intentions, went to the caregivers at the CHU, met elected officials, actors from the economic world, organic farmers, women of influence, and visited the Museum dedicated to slavery.

>> To read on France24.com: Presidential 2022: in Lille, Anne Hidalgo presents her "reconquest project" for France

Marker of this four-day trip, which should then take her to Martinique, the public meeting at the end of the afternoon on Saturday in Basse-Terre brought together only a hundred people in a 250-seat room.

However, 8,000 flyers had been distributed, but fears linked to Covid-19 were the strongest, explains Olivier Nicolas, the First Secretary of the Socialist Federation of Guadeloupe.

Anne Hidalgo "has a reputation in the West Indies", assures him, "because she is mayor of Paris" and "Paris is a large overseas city", with in particular 6,000 city officials from overseas.

But "Guadeloupe is recovering from three months of generalized brothel", and is still under a state of health emergency, while more than half of the population is not vaccinated, he recalls.

"It changes the nature of ultramarine images. Chirac who kissed the comforters, it no longer exists".

Result, with the curfew still in effect, "anything that looks like popular gatherings" is not successful.

"There is war only the carnival which attracts, and still".

Listening to Guadeloupean economic actors, all of them have suffered from the government's lack of consideration for 5 years.

The solutions exist, we must listen to the territories concerned who know their strengths as well as their weaknesses.

pic.twitter.com/jGUUQeopYG

— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) February 12, 2022

Five socialist municipalities out of 32

"Your presence is courage", declared to the militants the senator of Guadeloupe and ex-minister of Overseas, Victorin Lurel, acknowledging that it was "very difficult to mobilize".

But for Olivier Nicolas, the presidential elections do not mobilize in Guadeloupe.

In 2017, the participation rate was 40%.

"The only elections that interest are the municipal ones".

Land long acquired by the PS (72% of Guadeloupeans had voted Holland in 2012), Guadeloupe now has only five socialist municipalities out of 32 (but also various allied municipalities on the left), and the party recently lost the Department, after the Region , to the detriment of a diverse left.

"We remain the main party, but we are weakened. It's a real crisis, there is not enough strong conviction, there have been a lot of defections", analyzes Senator Victorin Lurel.

"You have incredible strength"

Saturday evening, during a public meeting in Basse-Terre Anne Hidalgo called on the Overseas Territories to be the "sentinels" and the "antibodies" in the face of identity discourse.

The candidate, who had visited a few hours earlier in Pointe-à-Pitre the Memorial Act, the Caribbean center for expression and memory of the slave trade and slavery, recalled that the history of Guadeloupe was marked " by the slave trade, slavery, and the need to fight". 

"You have an incredible strength which enriches the French Republic", she told them, adding: "At this time when questions of identity occupy the debates, the Overseas are sentinels and antibodies in relation to which is undermining our republic".

She regretted that "these last five years have widened inequalities, the climate debt", and, she regretted, "we have entered a situation where violence is everywhere".

Anne Hidalgo in her speech called on campaigners "not to be brainwashed by those who say the chips are down" in this election.

"Politics is not just about clicking, it's about meeting, it's about exchanging, about looking," she insisted.

"As long as we are standing, as long as there are women and men who are going to fight for our values, as long as there is this energy, there is an extraordinary basis of hope there", has she assured.

Coverage of medical expenses related to chlordecone poisoning

During this trip, Anne Hidalgo also went to the bedside of the caregivers of the Pointe-à-Pitre University Hospital, strongly affected by the health crisis and theater of tensions around the vaccination question.

The presidential candidate also promised full social security coverage of all medical costs related to poisoning with chlordecone, a pesticide banned in France in 1990 but which continued to be authorized in banana fields. of Martinique and Guadeloupe by ministerial derogation until 1993, causing significant and lasting pollution of the two islands.

Visiting the Assofwi farm, I reaffirmed my support for the victims of chlordecone.

This situation is scandalous, I will put an end to it with a soil depollution plan and by taking full responsibility for the care of sick people.

pic.twitter.com/cSMnwMlbzH

— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) February 12, 2022

More than 90% of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique is contaminated by chlordecone, according to Public Health France, and the West Indian populations have one of the highest incidence rates of prostate cancer in the world.

With AFP

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