Confined in the voting intentions around 2%, the mayor of Paris risks Sunday establishing the worst score in the history of the PS in a presidential election, behind the already calamitous result of Benoît Hamon in 2017 (6.34%) .

Contrary to these suspicious polls, the candidate aroused astonishment Thursday in Rouen, leaving the metro right when the sun finally appeared after two hours of incessant rain.

"This is proof that nothing is played," said an activist.

For Senator Patrick Kanner, early supporter, Anne Hidalgo is above all a "titanium" candidate, who has shown her pugnacity by staying in the race until the end, against all odds.

Strolling through the Sotteville-les-Rouen market, then in downtown Rouen, the candidate came to "close the loop" and thank the activists who "fought in very, very bad weather".

"We don't give up," she told them, "it's certainly the phrase I said the most in this campaign".

On September 12, when she announced her candidacy, on the banks of the Seine in Rouen, she responded to the instance of many PS elected officials, including First Secretary Olivier Faure.

But the candidate is struggling to be audible and is sinking little by little in the polls.

Within the PS, some criticize him in particular for his first proposal to double the salaries of teachers, deemed unrealistic.

Anne Hidalgo, presidential candidate, in Sotteville-les-Rouen, April 7, 2022 Thomas COEX AFP

"Collective"

She "left too late, she was not scheduled, she was not lying when she said (after the municipal elections, editor's note) that she would not be a candidate, she is going there because the Bernard Cazeneuve hypothesis disappears", advances an elected socialist.

She also "waggled a lot" in seeking "to play the primary card in the end not to play it", leaving voters perplexed, analyzes political scientist Rémi Lefebvre.

Another thorn in the side, the ephemeral candidacy of Christiane Taubira still comes to roll the voting intentions.

Above all, "his political line is not very clear," said Rémi Lefebvre.

"Anne Hidalgo has a program that is ultimately quite left-wing, more left-wing than François Hollande, to capture voters who had been disappointed by the ex-president, but in the end she associates Hollande with his campaign" by appearing with him on several occasions occasions.

“We are still paying for the Hollande mandate,” confirm party officials.

Others, on the other hand, judge that "the PS has lost its attractiveness, because we spent too much time taking stock of the previous five-year term", and accuse the management of the PS of not having worked enough since 2017 .

For the candidate, we cannot rebuild a party by erasing part of its history.

We must "reconcile" and work "collectively".

New name?

Openness to civil society, the trade union or association movement?

With environmentalists?

difficult to know what will come out of it, but "the PS of Epinay arrives at the end of its history", agrees an elected socialist.

Like many, Anne Hidalgo already has her sights set on the post-presidential period.

It brought together several major socialist figures on Wednesday evening, including François Hollande, but not Olivier Faure, which made people cringe.

Objective: "discuss and position ourselves to see how to conduct the last hours of the campaign", and then consider the legislative elections and the reconstruction of the left, she said.

The candidate clarified that she would meet Olivier Faure on Friday, assuring that there was no desire to blame anyone for a particularly difficult campaign.

With this campaign, "we have delimited our political space" between Emmanuel Macron and the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, believes the candidate, and "we have redefined our doctrine" around ecological transition and social justice, a-t- he adds.

"We will all have to be together, there is no room for individual adventures," she insisted.

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© 2022 AFP