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Municipal: the LREM fiasco in the big cities of France

2020-06-05T00:22:40.355Z


The presidential party hoped to find a place in the sun by imposing itself in metropolitan areas. But less than a month before the second round, his ch


"It's the wank!" Disillusioned, an LREM parliamentarian does not even try to beat around the bush. Better to call a spade a spade. With less than a month to go before the second round of municipal elections, Emmanuel Macron's party, who nevertheless dreamed of planting the majority flag on the pediment of large town halls, or even hanging Paris or Marseille on his board, sees s 'fly one after the other his chances of victory. "It's catastrophic, a real slap," said a member of the majority. "A disappointment," euphemized a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.

The first lap had already left the Walkers with a serious hangover. The successive failed attempts at alliances between the two towers definitely struck them. The only glimmers of hope are Le Havre - where Edouard Philippe is on favorable terms - or Strasbourg (7th city in France) where an agreement was reached with Les Républicains on Tuesday evening suggesting a possible victory for the candidate LREM Alain Fontanel.

No walking candidate in Lyon, Marseille, Biarritz…

A deal with the right that did not shock anyone at En Marche ... unlike those concluded in Lyon, where Gérard Collomb scored with Laurent Wauquiez last week. Unlike Paris, where the outgoing mayor of the 5th arrondissement, Florence Berthout (ex-LR), has just released her LREM label to support Rachida Dati.

"The campaign director of Agnès Buzyn who let this happen deserves to go before a revolutionary tribunal," strangles a majority parliamentarian. "We can lose elections, but we cannot lose our coherence," warns number two of En Marche, Pierre Person.

PODCAST. Hidalgo, Dati, Buzyn ... Paris is unconvinced, and so is the municipal campaign

In short, at the time of the first assessments, the Walkers have the blues. "Besançon where we are going out, Aix ... it's dead", enumerates, disappointed, a historic macronist. "Our only hope was Lyon, but there ..." added a ministerial adviser. LREM, which divested Collomb, will therefore leave without a candidate in the second round in many cities: in Lyon, but also in Marseille, and in Biarritz where the outgoing mayor MoDem supported by LREM, Michel Veunac, who arrived fifth on March 15, has withdrawn his list Tuesday.

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Even if the furniture was saved in Bordeaux, thanks to an agreement between the outgoing mayor (and dauphin of Alain Juppé) Nicolas Florian and the majority candidate Thomas Cazenave (endowed with only 12.69% in the first round), that is not enough to cheer up the troops: "It's good, but we could have invested Florian from the start", tackles a government adviser.

"What has been fatal to us is disunity"

"All this is the consequence of the first round, we could not expect to have any surprises," said the deputy walker of Vienne Sacha Houlié. Especially since for these municipal the outgoing premium was even higher ”. Perhaps… But if the Walkers have stumbled, they owe it above all to themselves. And a sin of pride? "It is true that in particular in Paris, we saw ourselves more beautiful than we were," admits a macronist from the start. “Wherever we have had smart deals with leavers, it has worked. What has been fatal to us is disunity, ”laments a heavyweight parliamentarian.

To this somber picture, some try to bring a touch of optimism. "This in no way prejudges what will happen for the future, especially for the presidential election in 2022, tries to reassure Senator François Patriat, very close to Macron. We have seen parties, like the LR in 2014, making a splash at the municipal level and not transforming the test afterwards ”.

Nevertheless, the shock is severe for the majority and should not be without consequences. “LREM, which is a movement and not a party, will no doubt have to evolve. This may be where the shoe pinches, "said an elected official of the majority. The sign in any case, as Patriat sums it up, that "the French have understood who Macron was, but that they have not yet internalized what macronism was".

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2020-06-05

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