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Taubira on Saturday in Lyon: Viewed soberly, the rescuer of honor at most
Photo: Laurent Cipriani/AP
Christiane Taubira knows how to warm left hearts.
In the winter fog of Lyon, she gathered a few hundred supporters over the weekend.
She has important things to say to them: “The pandemic is revealing a lot of social suffering.” She promises to fight this suffering, “the inequality, the injustices, the discrimination” resolutely.
For example, with an unconditional basic income of 800 euros for young people.
Youth, social justice, ecology, democracy – these are the buzzwords with which she garnishes her speech and then announces in a solemn tone: »I am a candidate for the presidency of the republic!«
Taubira enters.
Against the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, against the centre-liberal Emmanuel Macron, if he finally declares his candidacy.
Above all, however, she appears to give hope to the demolished French left.
Little left-wing politics, but many left-wing candidates
Her supporters in overcast Lyon are cheering, as if the left-wing figure of light is now dispelling the political smokescreen in which the socialists, greens and left-wing radicals are so disorientated at the moment that they are threatened with a historic fiasco in the April elections.
Is the former anti-racism activist from French Guiana, the hate figure of the right par excellence, who pushed through gay marriage as Minister of Justice under President François Hollande, the unifying savior of the divided left? Or is this flamboyant 69-year-old, on the contrary, just another candidate? So is she dividing her own camp further?
All polls and the entire election campaign so far leave little doubt: who will lead France in the next five years will be decided to the right of centre.
Left issues hardly play a role.
And the days of triumph seem very far away: the victories of the Socialists Mitterrand in the 1980s and Hollande in 2012 are only a faint memory.
In 2022 there will be little approval for left-wing politics, but all the more left-wing candidates: According to the polls, the socio-ecological camp can count on around 25 percent of the votes - in total.
With Taubira, these votes are now distributed among eight applicants.
It's a bit as if in Germany, from the Marxist-Leninist Party to the Olaf Scholz SPD, every party put forward a candidate for chancellor.
The best-placed leftist in France is the radical ex-socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who currently has nine percent of the voting intentions, followed by the Green Yannick Jadot with seven percent;
The eco-party may have won the 2020 local elections in big cities like Bordeaux and Strasbourg, but it remains weak in the really important election, the presidential election.
The candidacy of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo sparks even less enthusiasm – the socialist is stagnating at four percent.
In order to move into the run-off election on April 24, a candidate must probably achieve almost 20 percent of the votes cast in the first ballot alone.
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Thus, for France's left, the presidential election turns into a struggle for survival and against insignificance - which in turn is furthered by the irreconcilability of the candidates.
In fact, some left-wing voters are so distraught over fragmentation that 12 of them recently went on hunger strike.
They want to put pressure on everyone from Mélenchon to Hidalgo to go through a primary at the end of January and then rally behind the winner.
But Taubira is so far the only one who accepts this procedure.
Apparently she trusts in her popularity with left-wing voters.
She knows that French presidential elections are more about people than programs.
Content only counts if it contains flagship promises that make you stand out from the sea of candidates.
Old socialists against new identitarian positions
However, the unity of the left also fails because of programmatic differences, not only because of the egos of the candidates or because of the rightward drift of French society, which was already visible in the 2017 election, when Le Pen in the left ex-core electorate, among workers and employees, got the most votes.
Ever since Mitterrand, reformers and radicals have been irreconcilable.
Today they are at odds in many important areas: on questions of identity and dealing with Islam, with which the right dominates the election campaign, the traditional laicism of the socialists stands against the new, identitarian positions of the radical left.
In energy policy, some are in favor of a cautious phase-out of nuclear power - the communists, on the other hand, are in favor of expanding it.
In social and economic policy, the Greens promote a moderate market economy, while Mélenchon speaks anti-capitalist and wants to act dirigiste.
Looking ahead to the 2027 election
And while the left are arguing, the hated Emmanuel Macron, who is decried as neoliberal, is reaching many social-liberal voters: the many billions of euros with which he has been supporting the economy since the outbreak of the corona crisis would be considered left-wing demand policy par excellence in normal times.
She does not say exactly what offer Taubira wants the left to join. She limits herself to her flagship issues: in addition to a basic income for young people, she promises to raise the general minimum wage, return the tax on the rich that Macron cut and create 100,000 care jobs. She wants to exempt organic products from VAT. But she speaks most passionately when it comes to strengthening democracy in France – by upgrading parliament and giving citizens more say.
Otherwise, Taubira should rely on the special status in her camp.
The trained economist began her political career in the 1970s as an activist in the independence movement in her home country of Guyana, a French overseas territory north of Brazil.
In 1993 she became a member of the Paris National Assembly and later a member of the European Parliament.
In 2001, she pushed through a law in France that made slavery a crime against humanity.
She finally became the star of the left when, as Minister of Justice, she had same-sex marriage written into law in 2013 against severe hostility from the right.
Most recently, she drew attention to her for refusing to support the Covid vaccination campaign in French Guiana.
But that didn't do much harm to her image.
In the Socialist Party (PS) of her opponent Hidalgo, they hold something else against her.
They haven't forgotten that Taubira was a presidential candidate before - in 2002, twenty years ago.
According to the allegation, her candidacy cost the then PS candidate the crucial points that were missing for entering the runoff election.
In 2002, Taubira had a manageable 2.3 percent.
2022 is not looking much better so far.
Before Taubira officially started the presidential race, pollsters measured approval ratings of 3.5 percent.
But she hopes the primary at the end of January will provide the initial spark, igniting a momentum that will force her left-wing rivals to rally behind her.
Only: The area code, for which at least 120,000 people have already registered, is an initiative by private individuals that, apart from Taubira, none of their left-wing competitors want to face.
Nevertheless, Taubira's camp is betting that several rivals will back down in their favor in February, under the impression that the primary elections have voted in favor.
Viewed soberly, Taubira can at most be a savior of the left.
It's about damage limitation.
And: It's about who emerges from the 2022 election at least so honorably that he or she can claim leadership of the left in the 2027 election after next.
By then at the latest, President Macron will have to give way for constitutional reasons.
By then at the latest, some in the socio-ecological candidate field are hoping, the old left-right confrontation in France will be revived.
And with it, so the logical deduction, also the left.