The “France, I love you” chanted loudly by the hundreds of supporters gathered in Pola Square, in Bogota, suggest the arrival of a rock star. However, it is neither an actress nor a famous singer, but Francia Marquez, an Afro-descendant social leader and today a candidate for the vice-presidency in Colombia in the next presidential election on May 29. and June 19.

Escorted by the Indigenous Guard, an unarmed organization that fights with sticks and walkie-talkies in defense of its native Cauca (south of the country), the running mate of Gustavo Petro, the favorite left-wing candidate of the next ballot, is determined. “I am not here because I want a job but because we are demanding justice”, declares at the beginning of May the 40-year-old lawyer. Wherever she goes, Francia Marquez moves the crowds.

“Inequalities, she has experienced them”

His speech, which advocates the inclusion of the working classes and Afro, indigenous and LGBT minorities, appeals far beyond the members of his community. “I recognize myself in his willingness to take into account the opinion of those who have never had the floorenthuses Marwi Perdomo Rodriguez, a young woman of 32 who works in a hospital in Bogota. She does not just defend her community but fights to build a society based on social justice and benevolence. » Her personal experience makes her credible. “I know she can fight inequalities because she has experienced them”continues the activist, admiringly.

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His career is by no means a royal road. A single mother at the age of 16, Francia Marquez first worked as a domestic worker before embarking on law studies. A social leader from the age of 15, she made a name for herself in 2014 by leading a hundred women over the 500 kilometers that separate La Toma, her village, from the capital Bogota to ask the government to put an end to the mining operations that are ravaging her territory. . The episode has remained famous under the name of “March of the turbans” and will earn him, four years later, the Goldman Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for defenders of the environment.

A breath of fresh air on the country’s politics

The one who promised to fight the state “racist, patriarchal and classist that prevents Colombians from living with dignity” brings a breath of fresh air to the country’s politics. “Francia Marquez does not belong to any elite. That an Afro-descendant woman from Cauca can achieve this political notoriety constitutes a cultural revolution”, observes Juana Afanador, a sociologist at the University of the Andes in Bogota.

This unfailing commitment is not without risk, especially in Colombia, the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders. According to the office of the Colombian Defender of Rights, 145 social and environmental activists were murdered in 2021, or approximately one murder every three days.

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At the beginning of April, a far-right paramilitary group, the Aguilas Negras, threatened Francia Marquez with death, calling this mother of two children a “son of a bitch of a nigger”. Threats that do not shake the faith of the candidate, determined to become the first black vice-president of Colombia.