SAINT-DENIS (Seine-Saint-Denis) (Reuters) - José Bové announces his candidacy for the presidential election to "restore hope for an alternative to the left" and to be "the voice of the voiceless".
"I decided to accept that my name embodies on the ballot the common desire to beat the right to restore hope for an alternative to the left," said the anti-globalization leader.
"It is time to declare the electoral insurrection against economic liberalism," he added to his supporters gathered at the Saint-Denis labor exchange, in the Paris suburbs.
José Bové explained that he was not the candidate of a party and that his candidacy was "a collective candidacy".
"We want to be the voice of the voiceless, of these millions of citizens who suffer from social insecurity and discrimination," he said.
With the support of more than 32.000 petitioners, the anti-globalization leader hopes to bring together under his banner the disappointed left in government and voters tempted by abstention.
He symbolically chose to announce his candidacy for Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) to show that his program, which takes up the proposals of "anti-liberal collectives", goes beyond ecology and intends to respond to the social emergency.
José Bové launched an appeal to French people tempted to abstain or vote on the far right.
"We want to tell them that abstention or the Le Pen vote leads straight to the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Sarkozy is a dangerous man for our country," he said.
At the same time, José Bové believes that Ségolène Royal "embodies a left which has given up", in particular in the face of social liberalism "which led the whole left to electoral disaster in 2002".
The candidate will hold his first meeting on February 7 in Aubagne, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the day of the decision of the Court of Cassation on his sentence to four months in prison for mowing GMO fields.
With the support of more than 32.000 petitioners, the anti-globalization leader hopes to bring together under his banner the disappointed left in government and voters tempted by abstention.
BALANCE SHEET ON MARCH 11
He symbolically chose to announce his candidacy for Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) to show that his program, which takes up the proposals of "anti-liberal collectives", goes beyond ecology and intends to respond to the social emergency.
The trade unionist will lead his campaign with non-violent actions to establish his candidacy before March 11, the date of a meeting in the form of a balance sheet that the "anti-liberal collectives" have imposed on themselves, they say in his entourage.
His candidacy risks complicating the situation for the "left of the left" where he risks being in competition in particular with the communist Marie-George Buffet, the Trotskyists Olivier Besancenot and Arlette Laguiller, as well as with Dominique Voynet (Greens).
After the withdrawal of the ecologist Nicolas Hulot, José Bové remains however the only personality of the civil society likely to seduce the electorate of the PS who does not recognize himself as Ségolène Royal.
Marie-George Buffet regretted in advance "one more candidacy in the crumbling of the left". A judgment shared by Alain Krivine, leader of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR).
The former peasant leader, who is under the threat of a new incarceration, intends to rely on his image of "resistant to the system" and to lead a social, ecological and anti-globalization campaign, in particular.
In addition to the establishment of a Sixth Republic promoting a "citizen democracy", a large place will be given to ecology by advocating a new development model with a moratorium on nuclear power and GMOs.
"The planet will not survive the current development model. We must go further than individual actions, further than Nicolas Hulot's ecological pact," he explains Thursday in Le Parisien.
José Bové is committed to leading a collective campaign and his campaign committee must include several leaders of the anti-liberal as well as signatories of the petition "United with Bové" which allowed him to return to the race for the Elysee.
According to his relatives, the trade unionist can count on a starting base of 200 sponsorships of elected officials out of the 500 will enable him to make his candidacy a reality.
source: Yahoo news
It may be hot for him to campaign from his prison if he is convicted !!!