The campaign for the second round of municipal elections is exceptionally long and some are suspected of having sought to profit from it with methods that are not frankly legal. A search took place this Saturday morning at the campaign room of the head of the list Les Républicains Martine Vassal.
These investigations, launched by the prosecutor Dominique Laurens, follow the revelations of the weekly Marianne and the newspaper of France 2, revealing that two running mats of the candidate proposed to voters "simplified proxies", without respecting the usual procedures, and sometimes without even collecting the client's signature.
In theory, any proxy requires a trip to a police station, in front of a judicial police officer empowered to verify the identity of the voter. In the 4th and 6th sectors of Marseille, running mate would have offered voters a "simplified" proxy. In hidden camera, the France 2 teams show a running mate proposing to a voter to take care of the proxy herself. The voter just needs to provide a photocopy of his identity card and come and sign the proxy at the campaign office.
The Marianne newspaper is interested in identical practices in the 6th sector. This time, the client's signature was not even requested. "The police station punches us all the proxies that we bring them," says a running mate.
Martine Vassal denounces “a cabal of Parisian journalists”
These practices are totally contrary to the procedures that must be followed before going to vote. Asked about this, Martine Vassal denounced a "cabal of Parisian journalists". She also noted that "if the facts were proven, they are unacceptable" adding that she would ask "those who could have contributed to withdraw from the campaign and their mandates if they came to to be elected ”.
These revelations turned the Marseille countryside upside down. The RN candidate Stéphane Ravier evokes "shameful and shameful practices". Bruno Gilles, former LR and unlabeled candidate, swears never to have attended "such overflows from competitors". The Marseille spring, the union list of the left led by Michèle Rubirola, launched Friday a "citizen control operation" at the office of the electoral directorate of Marseille. The teams claim to have found 4,595 incomplete declarations, "where the date of the power of attorney and the name of the judicial police officer are missing".