A feminist activist, she is co-editor of the monthly publication Regards with Roger Martelli and co-secretary of the Fondation Copernic, a "circle of reflection" critical of liberalism.
She was a member of the executive council of the Organisme d'habitations à loyer modéré and Offices publics d'aménagement et de construction, organisations responsible for the management of low-cost housing in Paris.
Her grandfather, André Laffin, a veteran of the Indochina Wars, was briefly elected as a right-wing candidate as a member of UNR in the department of Yonne.
In 2001, the French Communist Party asked her to run at the top of the ballot in the 17th arrondissement of Paris against Françoise de Panafieu, which she described as a "big bourgeois woman" with "appalling class contempt".
As a representative of the Paris municipality, in 2001 she attended the Universités d'été euroméditerranéennes des homosexualités, where she worried about possible discrimination towards militant bisexuals in the associations within the homosexual world, a "biphobia".
[4] In 2005, she signed the Appel des indigènes de la République, before ultimately withdrawing her signature when Tariq Ramadan added his own.
[5] During this period, she participated in activities organized by the Conseil représentatif des associations noires de France (CRAN).
[6] She was declared ready to be a candidate in the 2007 French presidential election on 10 September 2006, at the meeting of the Collectif national d'initiative pour un rassemblement antilibéral de gauche et des candidatures communes where several local groups were in attendance, believing that she answered the needs of some militants for a candidate who did not represent any party, which gave her an advantage over Marie-George Buffet, Olivier Besancenot, Patrick Braouezec, Yves Salesse or José Bové "to synthesize".
At the end of 2008 – beginning of 2009, she contributed to the creation of the Fédération pour une alternative sociale et écologique (FASE), a political movement whose objective is to "unite all the forces of transformation and transcendence of capitalism" and of which she is the spokesperson.
After the setback of a planned unitarian antiliberal candidacy, Clémentine Autain decided not to engage in a disunited campaign that was establishing itself: I made the fight for our coming together with the touchstone of my commitment, the key to my identification.
[9]In May 2007, Clémentine Autain left the 17th arrondissement in Paris for a new home in Montreuil in Seine-Saint-Denis, and sold her former apartment, which she had bought some years previously.
[10] Several months later, Clémentine Autain confirmed her intention to not run as a candidate in the 2008 Paris municipal elections.
In part motivated by a desire to fight the "gentrification" of Montreuil,[14] Clémentine Autain's arrival paradoxically comes in a context of strong social change[15] in the previously more working class community.
[16] Living in Montreuil since early 2008,[17] she cohosts a program focusing on political discussion, Paroles de gauche (Words from the Left) and supported the militants without papers during their strike.
[18] Autain attended the national conference of l'Appel de Politis, a movement to create an alternative to the left.
Clémentine Autain expressed regret that Olivier Besancenot and the NPA did not seek to build political majorities nor to work and create alliances with others, such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
She worked with Cécile Silhouette, a Paris councilor, who was elected as a representative of Ensemble pour une gauche alternative et écologiste.