10:30 p.m. rings and then… the earthquake.
Val-de-Marne is no longer a Communist.
The last department of France still headed by a communist president, after 45 years without stopping, this time did not resist the assaults of the right.
For this second round of departmental elections, a real tsunami has swept through.
The team of Olivier Capitanio, leader of the Republicans, at the head of a union of the right and the center, "Together New Years Eve Val-de-Marne" wins with 14 cantons to 11 for the left (PCF, Insubordinate, PS, EELV).
A balance of power totally opposite to 2015, but in the continuity of the first round.
The RN and LREM do not get any seats.
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"This is quite extraordinary news and a historic result", still couldn't believe Olivier Capitanio (LR), the mayor of Maisons-Alfort, a few minutes before announcing his re-election in his town-canton, with Marie- France Sponsor (LR) at 73.09%. The fruit according to the elected official, in the battle for six years, of "several years of work by all, since 2015, and little by little by the conquest one by one of communist bastions in the municipal". And when the press release of outgoing president Christian Favier, in place since 2001, was announced, to repeat: "It is extraordinary".
"A great emotion", confides Senator Christian Cambon (LR).
“We had to do it and we do it.
And yet we typed four fiddly cuttings which resulted in very different cantons ”.
The former boss of the right even admits: “We did not believe it.
We hadn't prepared anything.
"
"It created a dynamic for all of us, that was what we wanted"
This victory, the right explains it by “the simultaneous and common campaign” with Valérie Pécresse (Libres!), Reelected to the presidency of the Ile-de-France region.
“It created a dynamic for all of us, that was what we wanted,” adds Olivier Capitanio.
Some on the left feared this scenario, fearing that the Pécresse wave would take everything. At the start of the evening, however, the first results in the five key cantons were encouraging for the left. Orly, in the hands of the outgoing duo Christine Janodet, the mayor (Left citizen) of Orly and the vice-president (MRC) Daniel Guérin, could switch to the right. The mayor of Villeneuve-le-Roi, Didier Gonzales (LR) was waiting for his revenge. But if he came in first in his city, the left folded the duel on the Orly side, with 205 votes in advance.
But the rest of election night was not the same.
When a key office in Champigny-1, the canton of President Favier, gave the advantage to the camp of Mayor Laurent Jeanne (Free!), The Communists began to be disillusioned.
Then, the wave broke: Choisy, the two cantons of Champigny and L'Haÿ which remained to the right.
Even at Vitry-1, the Communists lost the advantage.
In the main town of the PCF in Val-de-Marne, environmentalists, Frédéric Bourdon, for the La Fabrique-Vitry group, better associated with Naiga Stefel, were ahead by 40 votes, the former mayor (PCF) Jean-Claude Kennedy.
Enough to allow ecologists to triple their number of seats, if we add Cachan where they were outgoing.
"There are dynamics which go beyond the local establishment", concludes obviously disappointed the departmental secretary of the PCF Fabien Guillaud-Bataille.
Not without emphasizing “never-before-seen campaign methods”.
Citing as an example: “the cleaning in the night from Friday to Saturday of free billboards in Champigny, or even garbage leaflets like in Choisy.
"
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"The right will destroy everything"
Until the end, the campaign of this in-between rounds was fierce, also marked by an "altercation", according to the left, a fight "with baseball bats", for the right, this Friday evening, in the canton of Saint-Maur-2.
A few days before, LREM had lodged a complaint, suspecting "fraud" during the first round on the canton of Choisy.
Will this atmosphere at loggerheads continue even within the departmental assembly? The left with its 22 elected officials (7 PS, 3 EELV, 10 PCF, 1 MRC and 1 DVG) warns: "We will be extremely vigilant to public policies", according to Fabien Guillaud Bataille. "Our elected officials will be careful to ensure that they are preserved," adds Jonathan Kienzlen, first federal member of the PS, for whom "the defeat of the left is bad news for the inhabitants of Val-de-Marne" .
But as of this Sunday evening, the future president of the department, Olivier Capitanio, defeats the idea that "the right will destroy everything". “We have a project to build, we are attached to Val-de-Marne and its public policies. This Thursday, the new team in charge of this department of 1.45 million inhabitants will be installed. A new historic moment.
