Anne Hidalgo, the socialist who forged her image as mayor of Paris and will be a presidential candidate

The socialist Anne Hidalgo, Born in Spain into a modest Andalusian and Republican family, she lived most of her life in France, a country that first allowed her to develop professionally and then politically from the town hall of Paris.

A springboard from which he intends to accede to the presidency by announcing his candidacy this Sunday for the 2022 spring elections, with little chance of victory, according to the polls.

With 62 years old and the political showcase that offered him in the past seven years to be in charge of the Capital City CouncilThis daughter of immigrants has many figures to become the hope of the French Socialist Party at least to get out of the political insignificance into which she fell in the 2017 presidential elections with only 6.35% of the vote.

Ana María Hidalgo Aleu was born in San Fernando (Cadiz) on June 19, 1959, but with only two years he went to live in Lyon with his parents – who wanted to break with a country still very gray and marked by the harshness of the Franco dictatorship. At 14, he already had French nationality.

Although Spanish is spoken at home, young Anne was able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the French system of social advancement and its promises of freedom, equality and fraternity.

35 hours

She became a labor inspector and with her experience in this field entered in 1997 in the office of the Socialist Minister of Employment, Martine Aubry, who introduced in France 35 hours of work per week, then considered by the left as a great social success.

In the 2001 municipal elections, he ran for the top of the socialist list in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, and although he failed to beat his right-wing opponent, his party succeeded in conquering the town hall of the city with Bertrand Delanoë and she, as adviser in charge of equality between men and women and of the “office of the time” became “number two”.

Under the protection of Delanoë in Paris, Hidalgo hardened and in his second term (2008-2014) take responsibility for town planning and architecture.

In these years, she was also elected successively in the regional elections of 2004 and in 2010 in Ile de France, while it failed in 2002 and 2007 in his trainees to become deputy of Paris.

the mayor’s office

His great consecration at the polls took place during the municipal elections of March 2014, which allowed him to access – thanks to an alliance of socialists, communists, environmentalists and other personalities – to the post of mayor, the first in the history of the city.

Since taking power (she was re-elected in June 2020), the decisions that have been best known to her abroad, and also those that have generated the most enemies among the inhabitants of the outer crown of the metropolis – who don’t they vote in Paris -, are those which aim to reduce the circulation of cars.

With Hidalgo at the Town Hall, the deployment of cycle paths or the elimination of parking spaces has accelerated, while the power stations and speed limits have been reduced (They went at 30 kilometers per hour in almost all the streets).

The fight against pollution and climate change has been at the center of his administration, with the gradual ban on thermal engines, with the total ban on diesel engines by 2024. Measures generally well received in a city where most of the 2.15 million inhabitants do not do not own their own car.

Little chance

The announcement this Sunday of his candidacy for the Elysee Palace, which was an open secret for many weeks, will serve to verify whether it was the necessary step to come out of a second place in the polls, which until now had promised nothing more. than weak membership to challenge the country’s presidency.

Its first stumbling block, and in principle the simplest – it has the approval of its first secretary, Olivier Faure -, will be your own party, that with an internal vote of the militants after the congress to be held next weekend, he will have to decide who will represent him in the presidential elections of 2022.

The rest, starting with a sort of pact with environmentalists, is much more uncertain. And join the Elysée, under the current circumstances, a virtually impossible feat.

EFE Agency

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