AFP, Paris :
It was a victory to savour. As she bid to become the first female mayor of Paris, Spanish-born Socialist Anne Hidalgo had to endure taunts from her opponents about her modest origins and lack of Parisian roots.
But in the end, voters in the French capital brushed such snobbery aside and defied the national trend by electing the 54-year-old by a convincing margin.
Hidalgo had been expected to be run extremely close by her centre-right rival, glamorous former minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, on a night when the Socialists took a beating from voters across the country because of the unpopularity of President Francois Hollande’s government.
But Hidalgo emerged with nearly 55 percent of second-round votes in the capital, comfortably seeing off Kosciusko-Morizet’s challenge.
An old school feminist socialist, Hidalgo has spent the last 13 years as a low-profile deputy to current mayor Bertrand Delanoe.
Her party aparatchik image was seen as an electoral handicap but her serious manner and promises to boost social housing and childcare provision within the city centre appear to have struck a cord with the capital’s residents in these tough economic times.
“Mine was a victory for authenticity, a victory for a a left loyal to its principles and effective at implementing them,” Hidalgo said after securing membership of the exclusive club of women who have taken charge of major cities around the world.
