Regional elections: zoom aperitifs, virtual train ... the funny campaign under Covid-19

The suspense remains on the maintenance or postponement of regional elections in June.

The mayors are being consulted this weekend by the government, and the debate will move on Tuesday on the benches of the Assembly.

But, despite this uncertainty, many candidates have already embarked on a campaign - epidemic and health constraints oblige - unlike any other ...

Dompierre-sur-Yon, 11:20 am, 15 minutes stop… It was in a train that, Friday morning, Matthieu Orphelin, head of the environmentalist list in the Pays de la Loire region, chose to campaign.

Five cities in five departments visited ... without leaving his Angevin home.

Because, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “multiplied” in holograms, during the 2017 presidential election, the TER of the deputy for Maine-et-Loire is only… virtual.

No wagon or locomotive, but a screen connected to live exchanges - with students at the university of Le Mans, traders and craftsmen in Dompierre… - where participants were able to interact with the “regional of the stage” but also Karima Delli, the head of the EELV list common to all the left in Hauts-de-France.

The ecologist MEP who was initially to join Matthieu Orphelin and thus embody, they say in his entourage, "the dynamics of the union" had to backtrack.

Reconfinement obliges ...

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If in the virtual TER, she appeared alongside the deputy, she was in reality in his chosen North… “It's true that it's a very bizarre campaign, recognizes Matthieu Orphelin.

This pandemic forces us to constantly reinvent ourselves.

Of course, the thrills of big meetings are missing, but we also spend a little less money and especially less energy to, in the end, thanks to social networks, reach a lot more people, whether it is during screenings in live than in replay.

"

Because, the executive has not provided any exemption for candidates for departmental and regional.

"That the government at least give us the regulatory means to campaign

"

,

exclaims Isabelle Le Callennec, head of the LR list in Brittany.

Even if, for the moment, none of the candidates running throughout France has been fined, the Breton leader is worried.

“None of the eight reasons for travel corresponds quite to the usual and necessary appointments during an election campaign.

The closest to reality would be the first:

professional activity…, mission of general interest… travel that cannot be postponed,

”she explains in a press release.

The campaign is resolutely "new-look"

In Lyon, too, the campaign is resolutely “new-look”.

Video studio, radio studio, TV set, dozens of young people glued to their computer screens… It is from this hive at Part-Dieu that Bruno Bonnell, candidate for LREM in Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, is leading a resolutely digital campaign .

“Phygital”, as the member for Villeurbanne prefers to call it, a contraction of “physical” and “digital”.

»« Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitch, Clubhouse… no network will be neglected, this geek enjoys.

We will be able to send targeted messages to voters and to the territories.

"Bruno Bonnell has installed in his Lyon HQ, but also in each of the twelve departments of the region, a battalion of young" digital native "volunteers able to respond directly, or almost, to Internet users.

To reach the unconnected, its campaign will nevertheless retain some “classic” tools, such as stamped paper letters sent by post or field meetings in small committees.

In the Hauts de France, door to door, markets or apartment meetings have given way to "small thematic trips".

“This allows us to be closer to the program and to be more educational,” explains Patrick Kanner.

On Saturday, the socialist senator thus came to support Karima Delli in Steenwerk, a small town a few kilometers from Lille, to fight the construction of a giant henhouse providing for the breeding of 823,000 chickens… In Ile-de-France, Julien Bayou experiment with “video aperitifs”.

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“The head of the departmental list will invite in Zoom, a family or a small group of friends.

These aperitifs will allow those who would not have come to a meeting, to hang out in their living room and have a dialogue anyway, ”rejoices Julien Bayou, the boss of EELV and head of the green list in the region.

A lack of human contact that regrets, however, Valérie Pécresse, soon to be a candidate for her own re-election, at the head of a rallying list of the right and the center in Ile-de-France.

“There is no longer any real conviviality, sighs a relative.

The box, the digital do not replace the handshake and eye-to-eye exchanges.

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