The posters were carefully pasted at the entrance to the sports hall frequented by fans of Basque pelota. Didier Guillaume poses all smiles. Behind him, the Atlantic Ocean, the large beach, the imposing art deco casino ... The emblematic postcard of the elegant seaside resort. A falsely peaceful landscape that is about to become the scene of a fratricidal and unprecedented duel: two ministers, "comrades" of the same government will be present on two lists that clash at the municipal level. On the left, the Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume. On the right, the Secretary of State for Tourism, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, present to him on the list of the outgoing mayor MoDem.
This Saturday, two months before the first round, it was in this sports arena that Didier Guillaume, former patron of socialist senators, elected to Drôme for more than twenty years, decided to start hostilities. The small room is packed. Relatives, supporters, journalists who came in large numbers to attend the launch of the duel, some "moles" of the opposing teams present to observe "this disloyal game" as they say.
"I don't come for love, I come for reason"
The minister takes the microphone, confirms his candidacy. Then, very quickly, he shoots his first arrow: "I don't come for love, I come for reason!" So much for his government colleague, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who formalized his relationship with the socialist senator Frédérique Espagnac, elected from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques region, at the end of December. "I fell in love twice," said the Secretary of State, a former close friend of Jean-François Copé, posing entwined with the one who sat on the benches of the Luxembourg Palace under the direction of the same Didier Guillaume! A vaudeville-like campaign that embarrasses the majority.
Thursday, the Minister of Agriculture was thus invited to a text explanation meeting in Matignon with an Edouard Philippe very annoyed by this situation. "There are not going to be two candidate ministers," he said. The fact remains that Didier Guillaume is no less a candidate. For half an hour, he explained the reasons which led him to present himself, refraining from being parachuted there: "I was not born in Biarritz but I am eligible and able to respond to the functions to which I apply . 50% of the Biarrote population was not born in Biarritz. "
The Minister of Agriculture praises his experience as a local elected representative, his network, his ability to negotiate with interlocutors, foreigners, useful virtues according to his arguments, in a city so touristy located less than half an hour from the Spanish border. He underlines the diversity of his local team, from all ranks of the Biarrot political spectrum, from the left, his family of origin, to the right. And to evoke the need to "go beyond the old world" to do "something different". In the meantime, the Minister of Agriculture is starting this weekend a "proximity campaign". "Wanderings" as they say in the Macron Newspipe and apartment meetings.
