"In this country undermined today by inequalities from an early age, at school, then at the start of their professional lives, and throughout their careers, my opponent is injustice!" , said the candidate for the Elysée Palace.

The PS candidate François Hollande had marked his victorious campaign in 2012 with his formula: "my adversary is the world of finance".

In front of some 800 conquered people, gathered in the Halle Martinot on the famous Place des Lices, Ms. Hidalgo, in great difficulty in the polls, called for "change policy", "change majority" and above all "change future! “, the slogan of his campaign.

"If the French people trust me, from May, I will freeze energy prices, I will lower the VAT applied to them to 5.5%, I will increase the Smic by 15% and I will ask the partners social to open salary negotiations in all professional branches", explained Anne Hidalgo, credited with around 2% of the voting intentions.

In the presence of the mayors of Rennes and Nantes, respectively Nathalie Appéré and Johanna Rolland, her campaign manager, but also the former mayor of Rennes Edmond Hervé and the climatologist Jean-Jouzel, the candidate tackled President Macron: "when we say to ourselves + neither from the right, nor from the left +, we know it, it is + and from the right and from the right +”.

Defending a project "credible, serious, and not made to join the shelves", Anne Hidalgo warned: if Emmanuel Macron is re-elected, "all these regression reforms attempted for five years, we will undergo them without remission in the next five years. ", "starting with the retirement age at 65" - proposal of the presidential candidate confirmed this week.

“Who is going to pay for the Covid crisis and whatever it costs? Those who have suffered from it all their lives”, asserted the mayor of Paris, who wants to propose “the opposite: will pay those who have the means, with the return of wealth tax, the contribution of very high estates and the relentless fight against fraud and tax evasion".

The war in Ukraine obviously imposed itself in his speech.

But "this conflict cannot completely overshadow the campaign," added the candidate, regretting that the outgoing president does not want to debate.

"It is still surprising to have the slogan + with you + and as soon as it is a question of debating, to say it is + without me +".

Finally she warned voters not to resign themselves "to polls, to a vote that some want to qualify as + useful +".

But "there is no future on the left in complacency with dictatorships", she asserted, in a tackle to the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in the lead on the left in voting intentions.

And if "always we have done, and always we will block the far right", she continued, "there is no future in lining up in the first round behind a liberal right embodied by the 'current president'.

© 2022 AFP