TAUBIRA. One more candidacy on the left: Christiane Taubira officially announced her participation in the Popular Primary, this Saturday, January 15. But between the polls and her program, can she embody a leap for the left?
The essential
- Christiane Taubira announced her candidacy for the presidential election this Saturday, January 15, 2022. But the former Minister of Justice clarified that she will submit to the verdict of the Popular Primary, whose vote will take place from January 27 to 30.
- During her speech in front of 200 people in Lyon this Saturday, she unveiled the main axes of her program, articulated around four main subjects: youth, social justice, ecology and the Republic. It intends, among other things, to rely on the following measures: an increase in the minimum wage to 1,400 euros net per month, a monthly income for students of 800 euros for five years, the recruitment of 100,000 caregivers and VAT at 0 % on products from organic farming.
- If she did not want to be “one more candidate”, the ambition of the former Keeper of the Seals should finally be added to the list of various left contenders at the Elysée. Long hoped for as the one able to achieve the union, her enterprise failed. But she still seeks the presidential palace.
- The polls still give it far from 10%. Christiane Taubira would only collect 2 to 4% of voting intentions in the first round.
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Christiane Taubira is officially a candidate and reveals part of her program
Campaign column for January 15, 2022. 2:31 p.m. This Saturday, January 15, a new candidate entered the presidential race. This is the former Keeper of the Seals Christiane Taubira. She declared her candidacy in front of 200 people gathered in Lyon. Christiane Taubira has indicated that she will rely on the result of the popular primary to be held from January 27 to 30.
During her speech, she unveiled the main lines of her program, articulated around four major topics: youth, social justice, ecology and the Republic. It intends, among other things, to rely on the following measures: an increase in the minimum wage to 1,400 euros net per month, a monthly income for students of 800 euros for five years, the recruitment of 100,000 caregivers and VAT at 0 % on products from organic farming.
Participant in the popular Primary, Christiane Taubira will have to submit to this ballot in a single round and according to the rules of majority judgment. Thus, voters will have to assign a “mention” among five possible to each of the candidates: “very good”, “good”, “fairly good”, “passable”, “insufficient”. On the starting line in front of her, six names: Anna Agueb-Porterie, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Pierre Larrouturou, Charlotte Marchandise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Christiane Taubira at 4% in the latest poll
January 12 campaign chronicle. 5:19 p.m. The latest poll on voting intentions in the first round of the presidential election, carried out by Elabe and published on Wednesday January 12, 2022, credits Christiane Taubira with 4% of the vote. The former Keeper of the Seals would come very far from Emmanuel Macron and the right-wing candidates, not upsetting the balance on the left any further.
Touted as the one that could have allowed the left to unite, Christiane Taubira’s candidacy for the presidential election was finally added to all those already announced. If the ambition of the former Minister of Justice was to manage to organize a common project, she faced the categorical refusal of Yannick Jadot or even Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Despite this failure, she aims to go all the way after months when her interference in the countryside appeared like an Arlesian. But far from reshuffling the cards on the left, it simply seems to vary the possible results of the other contenders, at the margin.
Taubira candidate without rally
“I will not be another candidate”. The promise made by Christiane Taubira apparently disappeared three weeks after being made. Because, while the former Keeper of the Seals wanted to convince the other left-wing contenders for the presidential election to participate in the popular primary, all refused to submit to it, even Anne Hidalgo ultimately not accepting this mode of designation. Despite an impossible situation, the former Minister of Justice announced on Sunday January 9, 2022 to support this citizens’ initiative: “I accept the risk of democracy. I will accept the verdict of the popular primary”.
In the columns of West France Monday January 10, Christian Taubira detailed what prompted her to run: “I do not see any signs of a rally emerging, neither at the level of the candidates nor at the level of the parties. This observation of an impasse leads me to recognize the popular primary as a democratic space in itself. It is the last space where a gathering of the left is possible”. The former presidential candidate of 2002 specifies that she did not exchange with Yannick Jadot nor Anne Hidalgo “recently”, but “with people around them”, regretting that “the union is called by everyone, but there, the problem currently is that it’s a bit of a union behind you”.
If she still says “throw[r] all my forces in the union”, Christiane Taubira, has not, for the time being, managed to place herself to tune the violins on the left for a common project. She even seems to divide it further by launching herself from her own side, while the movement is already advancing in dispersed order.The former tenant of Place Vendôme therefore wants to try to surf on a popular mobilization to “bring up the desire for union”, after the failure of negotiations behind the scenes. Will the popular primary bring the left out of the doldrums?
This independent initiative has been proposing for several months to appoint a single candidate to carry “ecological, democratic and social values”. First categorically rejected by all aspirants to the Elysée, she ended up seducing the former Minister of Justice. The concept ? In October, sponsorships of personalities took place (with their endorsement or not), making it possible to retain ten candidates: Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain, Gaël Giraud, Pierre Larrouturou, Charlotte Marchandise, Anna Agueb-Poterie and… Christiane Taubira. Only four have expressed interest in participating in the election, but no leading political figure, before the reversal of the former minister of François Hollande. So far, more than 110,000 people have announced their intention to participate in the vote.
What are the results of Christiane Taubira in the polls?
Christiane Taubira has, for the first time, been tested by a polling institute. It is OpinionWay which slipped the name of the former Minister of Justice in its survey carried out online from December 8 to 9 with 962 people. It emerged that the former Keeper of the Seals would only win 2% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election, more or less his score in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. left (PRG), Christiane Taubira had been accused, along with Jean-Pierre Chevènement, of having deprived Lionel Jospin of a second round, indirectly paving the way for Jean-Marie Le Pen at the time. In the latest Elabe poll for BFMTV and L’Express, published on January 12, she is credited with 4% of voting intentions.
Christiane Taubira has not yet revealed the details of her presidential programme. On the other hand, in a column published in The world on December 29, she sketched the outlines of what it might contain, covering many subjects, without however going into practical details. For example, she wants to put back “from the public health service, thirty minutes from home, under annual allocations to break with the accounting logic, whose reception and care capacities will have to be reinforced, in addition to ensuring the fair remuneration of staff”, campaigns for an increase in the minimum wage, but also for teachers, while advocating a return of the ISF, taking more from those who can contribute more” but also “punished[r] severely those who organize themselves to evade taxes”.
Christiane Taubira wants to “stimulate and support research, over time and in the moment”, but also “to tackle for good the renovation of the millions of thermally faulty dwellings”, “to promote the solidarist and efficient economy, to regulate the digital giants, actively protect personal data, contain the ordinary violence that parasitizes social networks”, while fighting against “the climate shock [qui] is already the business of this century and [qui] calls for drastic choices”.
Biography of Christiane Taubira
Originally from Cayenne, Christiane Taubira was born on February 2, 1952. Coming from a family of six children, she was brought up by her mother, a caregiver. She studied economics and agri-food in Paris and Bordeaux before becoming a professor of economics in 1978. She co-founded the Caribbean Confederation of Agricultural Cooperation, which she directed from 1982 to 1985. She also joined the Office of cooperation and foreign trade of French Guiana.
In 1993, she founded Walwari, a Guyanese political party based on socialist ideas and was elected deputy for the 1st constituency of Guyana. After having supported the Balladur government that same year, she joined the Republic and Freedom group, then Radical Energy (which would become the Radical Left Party) and was elected as a Member of Parliament in the 1994 European elections. She would keep her seat until 1999.
A member of the Socialist Party from 1997 to 2001, Christiane Taubira was chosen to represent the Radical Left Party in the 2002 presidential election. She then became its first vice-president. In 2004, she ran for the European elections, at the top of the ‘fraternal Europe’ list, but won only 1.54% of the vote. During the 2007 presidential election, the PRG presented no candidate, preferring an alliance with the Socialist Party.
Christiane Taubira therefore supports the candidacy of Ségolène Royal as ‘delegate for republican expression’. Re-elected MP for Guyana in 2007, she participated in the regional elections in 2010, but failed against Rodolphe Alexandre. The same year, she chose to support Arnaud Montebourg, candidate for the socialist primaries for the presidential election of 2012. Christiane Taubira is known for her positions for the recognition by the European authorities of the slave trade and slavery as a crime. against humanity, but also for its opposition to the bill relating to the wearing of religious symbols in public schools, preferring an educational response rather than a legislative one.
In 2012, she became Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals. She is notably at the origin of the law on marriage for all adopted in 2013. At the beginning of 2016, she slams the door of her ministry, launching her place to Jean-Jacques Urvoas. Christiane Taubira will explain her resignation by her disagreement with the government about the forfeiture of nationality.