Christiane Taubira, who would be first president to be Black or female, has been called \u2018moral conscience of the left\u2019
\n France
\nChristiane Taubira, the former justice minister and leading figure on the French left, has said she is considering running for president in the spring and will announce a final decision next month.
\nIn a video posted on social media she promised to \u201cuse all my strength\u201d to unite the divided left. Taubira\u2019s supporters had for months been calling on her to run to be France\u2019s first Black female president to counter the rise of the far right.
\nTaubira introduced same-sex marriage in 2013, in the face of street demonstrations and heated debates in parliament, when she served in as justice minister for the Socialist government under Fran\u00e7ois Hollande. She is also well-known for being the driving force behind the 2001 law recognising the slave trade as a crime against humanity.
\nTaubira, who was first elected to the National Assembly as an independent member of parliament in 1993, has been described by the professor of political science R\u00e9mi Lefebvre as \u201cthe moral conscience of the left\u201d. A recent poll by L\u2019Obs magazine found she was the preferred candidate of voters on the left \u2013 even before it was clear she might run. The same L\u2019Obs poll found that 86% of leftwing sympathisers would like one single candidate to stand for a united left.
\nCurrently the French left is divided into many different candidates and shown in current opinion polls as unable to reach the final run-off next April, which is forecast to feature Emmanuel Macron facing a candidate from either the right or the far right.
\nIn her video, Taubira said: \u201cI won\u2019t be just one more candidate\u201d, suggesting that between now and mid-January she would be part of efforts to bring together rival leftwing candidates before announcing a final strategy. She said she could see the current \u201cdeadlock\u201d on the left and had always promised to take responsibility, which meant she was considering launching her own presidential bid. She said what counted were the daily lives of voters and ensuring French people could live together. She said people were facing daily difficulties, and uncertainty about their future and there was \u201cfragmentation at work in French society\u201d. She said it was important to \u201creinforce social cohesion without excluding anyone\u201d and to act on the climate.
\nThe French left has never fielded so many different presidential candidates at this stage of the race. They include the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo; the Greens\u2019 Yannick Jadot; Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon of La France Insoumise, who has a more left-wing programme than the Socialist party; and the Communist party\u2019s Fabien Roussel. All have so far refused Hidalgo\u2019s plea to unite and submit to a citizens\u2019 primary vote in January to chose the best-placed single candidate.
\nApart from Hidalgo, all candidates insist they will still run separate campaigns, despite opinion polls currently placing each of them at no more than 10% and unable to reach the final.
\nThe difficulties on the left have been heightened by the rise in support for the far right. The combined leftwing candidates currently account for a total of only 24\u201329% in April\u2019s first round vote. Meanwhile, the far right is becoming the country\u2019s strongest force and has taken working-class voters from the left. Polls show the far right currently has at least 30% support, with two major candidates. The historic far-right figure Marine Le Pen is running for the third time, but she has competition from the high-profile, far-right TV pundit \u00c9ric Zemmour, who has convictions for inciting racial hatred, and who has launched an outsider presidential bid, warning immigration and Islam will destroy France.
\nTaubira, from Cayenne in French Guiana, has been praised on the left for her charisma, her oration in parliament and her pithy TV debates. Her supporters in Paris this weekend said they felt she would be a good opponent against the TV polemicist, Zemmour, who the Socialist Hidalgo has likened to a \u201cmerchant of hatred\u201d.
\nTaubira first ran for president 20 years ago, in 2002, where she took just over 2% of the vote in the first round. That election was a historic moment in French politics where the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the final round run-off against the right\u2019s Jacques Chirac.
\nAn OpinionWay poll earlier this week \u2013 when it was not known whether Taubira would run or whether others on the left might make way for her \u2013 placed her at 2% in the first round next April.
\nLast month, Taubira told a French TV show: \u201cI refuse to accept that the presidential election is lost for the left\u201d. She felt the left was the only means to \u201cre-establish social justice\u201d in France, build a form of \u201cliving together\u201d and deal with the climate emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christiane Taubira, who would be first president to be Black or female, has been called \u2018moral conscience of the left\u2019 France Christiane Taubira, the former justice minister and leading figure on the French left, has said she is considering running for president in the spring and will announce a final decision next month. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-233555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n