It only took a few lines for hope to be reborn.
In a short message posted at the bottom of a leaflet last weekend, Christiane Taubira supports Audrey Pulvar, a left-wing candidate for the presidency of the Ile-de-France region, as revealed by Le Parisien on Thursday.
A sign of life after months of radio silence and a first political stance since the Europeans of 2019. Enough to put balm in the heart of the supporters of the former Minister of Justice who are still hoping for his candidacy for the presidential election from 2022.
"Personally, I do not project myself in this role", she assured last September, on France Inter, but at the forefront of these fans, the collective of citizens Taubira for 2022 continues to believe in it and to work "To create a climate conducive to his candidacy".
This Monday, March 8, for International Women's Day, they participated in various parades throughout France brandishing the name of their champion.
Launched in spring 2020 on social networks, the movement now has nearly 79,000 members on Facebook, around sixty local committees spread across France and an online petition calling for the candidacy of the former minister, aligning 28,000 signatures ... The collective even raised funds to launch a survey and measure its chances.
"A spontaneous movement of citizens"
The success of the structure operating horizontally and without hierarchy or fixed representative, surprised Capucine, a 30-year-old Parisian computer scientist who launched the Facebook group in full confinement almost a year ago.
"It is a spontaneous movement of citizens who want to become political actors again and have decided to claim their candidate, the one who best embodies the values of justice, humanism and solidarity, the only one able to unite the left", sums up the young woman who has never campaigned.
This is the case for many of the 3000 active members of the network, among whom there are many young people and jumble of disappointed macronism, sympathizers of all the left, many abstainers.
Some signatories of another pro-Taubira petition also joined in, relayed by Mediapart and initialed by 8,500 supporters since November.
If Christiane Taubira, currently in Guyana, is not at the origin of this movement "we know that she keeps abreast of what we are doing", assures Capucine, temporary representative of the collective.
Last spring, she did not discourage two of her members who contacted her via Instagram to announce the launch of a petition.
"She told them that she found it very good that young people take their responsibilities and that she would follow that with interest".
A "new life in Cayenne"
Since more news.
This does not discourage the young computer scientist: "I have the firm conviction that she is going to go there, she has every interest in letting the suspense hover".
A Coué method shared by the members of the Facebook group who keep the flame alive by sharing interviews with the former minister who is several months or even years old, for lack of anything better.
But among those close to the former minister, who remains unreachable, it is confirmed that the chances of her lining up in 2022 are slim.
Passed by his cabinet at the Chancellery and now deputy mayor of Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), Valentin Narbonnais says he called her for her birthday in early February.
“She follows national news a lot and the spontaneous mobilization that is taking place.
The state of the left despairs her.
But for several months, I have not seen any desire for an imminent return ", confides the elected official, for whom Christiane Taubira" appreciates her new life in Cayenne where she takes time for her family and rediscovers the Amazon she loves so much. ".
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A former friend of parliament, too, has little hope after having, along with others, multiplied the attempts to convince her last year.
"It is certain that she has a rating of hell
(Editor's note: a recent Odoxa Dentsu-Consulting survey makes her the most popular personality on the left with 51% of support or sympathy)
, he admits.
But she has never taken the initiative or given a signal to seriously consider a possible candidacy in recent months.
Perhaps if the mobilization grows, it will hear it on the other side of the Atlantic ”.