This little 69-year-old woman with a piercing gaze, strapped in her trouser suits, closely braided, has always cultivated "mystery", between remarked speeches and a certain silence.

This time, the one who had been divided for a few years between her native Guyana and her Parisian apartment, returns to the political scene and launches, as in 2002, into the presidential battle, to try, she says, to bring together a left in " dead end".

"If I, who can stand up, I capitulate, everything collapses. (...) If I don't take my responsibilities, then who will?" Explained to L'Obs the one who said in 2019 "don't love the routine".

Considered by some to be an "icon" of the left, she is the object of strong hatred on the right and the far right, and even sometimes in her own camp.

Known for her strong character, however, she has "a real ability to attract sympathy and support", says ex-rebellious PS Christian Paul, who is campaigning alongside her.

Born in Cayenne on February 2, 1952 into a modest Guyanese family of eleven children, she graduated in economics, agro-food, sociology and Afro-American ethnology.

A sympathizer of independence theses in her youth, she made her debut in politics by winning the legislative elections in 1993 with her movement Walwari (various left), created with her husband Roland Delannon, from whom she will have four children and from whom she divorced.

She was also elected MEP from 1994 to 1999, on the list of the Radical Left Party (PRG) led by Bernard Tapie.

His name remains associated with a law passed in 2001 which recognizes the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.

The following year, she ran for president, under the colors of the PRG.

She won only 2.32% of the vote, but was accused of having contributed to the fall of the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.

Christiane Taubira in New York on January 29, 2016 Jewel Samad AFP/Archives

At the PS, some still hold it against him.

"She's a totem personality of the left, but not a pure social democrat," said an executive, who sees her "still as a factor of division".

In 2012, the day after François Hollande's victory, she joined the Ayrault I government as Minister of Justice.

"Free"

The French discover her combativeness when she defends the "marriage for all" bill in the face of fierce opposition from the right.

The law was adopted in April 2013. The left gave the minister a standing ovation.

Despite this personal success, this highly literate orator then lost her decisions on penal reform, one of her flagship projects, and the reform of juvenile justice, which she wanted to be less repressive, got bogged down.

The far right is directly aimed at her skin color, she cashes in.

In early 2016, she tendered her resignation to François Hollande, publicly disapproving of his controversial proposal to forfeit nationality.

"She could wait (...) but she preferred to leave, contributing in part to weakening" François Hollande, criticizes former PS deputy Bernard Poignant in a column at Liberation.

"She is a stateswoman, free, with a republican background", praises Guillaume Lacroix, president of the PRG, for whom "she embodies the moral left".

He considers it "unclassifiable. This is what makes its strength but also the angles on which its adversaries hit permanently".

For Christian Paul, she is "a very central candidate on the left, a meeting point for the left and ecology", recalling that she notably fought against gold mining in Guyana.

But for a member of the management of EELV, he lacks "a highly developed ecological ideological corpus" to convince left-wing voters.

"On many subjects, I don't know what she really thinks," also confides LFI deputy Alexis Corbière.

At the end of September, His refusal to call for anti-Covid vaccination against Covid in Guyana, had caused an outcry.

Since then, she has defended it on several occasions.

© 2022 AFP