” In your dreams ! » It is with these words that Anne Hidalgo, the socialist candidate for the presidential election, responded, on Saturday January 22 during a meeting in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), to “prophets of doom” who would like her “resigns to difficulty” of the presidential campaign and gives up.
Struggling in the polls, which give her between 2% and 4% of voting intentions, Anne Hidalgo remained offensive against “an incredible coalition [qui] was tied to declare this election a foregone conclusion”, she explained in front of a little more than a thousand activists in Aubervilliers, in a sparsely filled room. “They all got into it, to keep us away (…) and signal the end of the match even before kick-off”, she denounced, referring to “their dream” of one “election without the socialists”.
According to her, “To the vindictive chorus of the conservatives, the voices of a part of the left have joined, which claims to be fighting the right but above all dreams of the disappearance of social democracy”, an accusation already formulated against La France insoumise by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
It front of “conservatives of all stripes” and to “populists of all feathers”, she endeavored to restore the image of her party, defending “those socialists who beat them so often, (…), dare to carry out the reforms they hate, (…) dare to want to govern, dare to extend the rights of the exploited, (…) to fight against the aberrations of the market society, against the mortal threats which weigh on our planet and its biodiversity”.
Culture, “lever of collective life”
Outlining the main measures of its program presented last week, it notably defended its proposal to increase the minimum wage by 15%, “a measure of justice” and “an economic necessity”. It has deployed its proposals for school, youth, health, housing and old age.
In climate matters, she defended “massive public investment” to finance the choice of renewable energies, a “Third-party payment renovation” for housing, or “the conditioning of all public aid to companies on the commitment to strict compliance with social and environmental criteria”. “We don’t just want ecology. We want a fair ecology”, she insisted.
Faced with the democratic challenge, she reiterated her desire to set up the citizens’ initiative referendum, and highlighted at length culture, “this powerful lever of collective life”.
” I am not afraid “
She recalled the major reforms carried out by the Socialist Party, from the abolition of the 35-hour death penalty and the fifth week’s leave, to “minimum income”, marriage for all or the Paris climate agreement.
“So are we going to give in? (…) Are we going to let our France sink into the throes of an ever more violent liberalism with the middle classes and working classes, with the youth, or sink into a deadly national-populism? » ” Never “, she shouted.
She finally recalled having asked for a “honest, open, clear debate” with its competitors on the left, but “they refused”. “The page is turned, I will defend our project, the French will decide”, she added, before ensuring: ” I am not afraid. »
Mme Hidalgo repeated once again on Friday that she would not hold “no account” of the result of the popular Primary, a citizens’ initiative aimed at deciding between the candidates on the left, which must reveal on Sunday evening the final number of people registered to vote there, from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 January. The organizers of this primary claimed 352,000 registered Friday evening.