The regional elections in the Pays de la Loire could be the trial run of the next presidential election, the political test of several visions of ecology embodied by important personalities.
The outgoing LR president, Christelle Morancais, supported by Senator Bruno Retailleau, potential candidate for 2022, will be challenged in particular by the macronist François de Rugy and by the ecologist, ex-LREM, Matthieu Orphelin.
Two deputies whose fame goes beyond the borders of the region, two green projects in head-on competition.
“We are watching this election with a lot of vigilance,” confides someone close to the executive.
François de Rugy, whose entry into the running will be formalized in April, succeeded the very popular Nicolas Hulot, at the Ministry of Ecology, a chair he will occupy from September 2018 to July 2019. Matthieu Orphelin, him, after having was the right-hand man of Nicolas Hulot and was elected in 2017 under the colors of the presidential majority that he left in February 2019, has changed, in the National Assembly, into the flag bearer of the opposition green to government policy.
This Friday, March 12, he was officially inducted at the head of the list of the “Call for an ecological, citizen and united region”.
As if to spice up this pre-presidential scent a little more, the green MEP Yannick Jadot, probable candidate in the race for the Elysee Palace, went on Friday alongside Matthieu Orphelin to defend the cause of the dolphins found dead on the Atlantic beaches.
"Knowing what type of ecology voters want"
"It is true that the region is the image of the future presidential, recognizes Matthieu Orphelin.
It symbolizes the reorganization into three blocks of French political life.
The ecological and social pole that I hope to succeed in constituting with the socialist list led by the former minister of François Hollande, Guillaume Garot, a macronist and liberal pole around François de Rugy and a conservative pole with the LR and RN lists .
"A National Rally list led by MEP Hervé Juvin, the" Mr. Ecology "of Marine Le Pen's party ...
“The Pays de la Loire is one of the rare regions whose presidency could change.
This is why the results will be scrutinized at the national level, ”insists Matthieu Orphelin.
"The game for the regional presidency is completely open," said François de Rugy.
The first and the second round will be key moments in knowing what type of ecology voters want.
The permanent and radical process of everything that has been done since 2017, embodied by Matthieu Orphelin, a project synonymous with degrowth.
Or mine, based on scientific, technological and economic progress.
As the five-year review approaches, we will see everything that has been done during this presidency.
"
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“The ecology that I defend is, on the contrary, that of action and solidarity, insists Matthieu Orphelin.
François de Rugy's ecology does not change the liberal economic system.
If, after the yellow vests crisis, premiums for clean vehicles or the expansion of access to energy vouchers were implemented, it is because elected officials like me made direct contact with the Elysée, François de Rugy had already given up.
“One certainty puts the two men in agreement: in the first as in the second round, there will be no alliance between their two lists ...