Former French Justice Minister Christian Tombira announced today her candidacy for the presidency of the country with the aim of uniting the French Left and opposing President Emanuel Macron in the April elections.
“I pledge to you today because I share with you the ambition for another kind of government,” former Socialist Minister François Hollande (2012-2017) told supporters in Lyon at the official start of her campaign.
Tombira denounced Macron's “strictly top-down power flow and lack of social dialogue” and vowed to fight for higher wages, better conditions for pupils and students, health care and environmental Protection. The 69-year-old politician, born in French Guiana, France's overseas region next to Brazil, where she served as an MP, is praised by the Left after she fought for a law recognizing the slave trade as a crime against humanity and why as Minister of Justice the enactment of the law allowing marriage between same-sex couples in 2013.
Tombira, however, risks being the only one of the six candidates to claim the vote of almost 30% of the Left electorate: by Jean-Luc Melanson – who secures the largest share (almost 10%) in the weekly poll of the JDD – up to the Green candidate Yannick Zando and the mayor of Paris Anne Indalgo (6.5% and 3.5% respectively). A January poll gave Tombira about 4.5 percent of the vote. The other three contenders for the presidency – the conservative Valerie Pecres, the far-right Marin Le Pen and the also far-right Eric Zemour – have some chances of facing the outgoing Macron in the second round of elections. Although he has not officially announced his candidacy, the president himself shows in the polls the highest percentage in the preferences of one in four voters.
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