Between Greens wanting to confirm their breakthrough, a PS in search of an “act of renaissance of the left”, a PCF defending its meager achievements and rebellious little involved, the left approaches the municipal with disparate objectives and “unions” with variable geometry.
Just under three weeks before the first round, on March 15, the alliances have been sealed and should not move, offering a complex mosaic to decipher.
Left parties, PS, PCF and other more recent formations (Generations or Public Square), make a common list with EELV in many cities (Bordeaux, Beauvais, Amiens, Besancon …). But elsewhere, the Greens prefer to go alone (Strasbourg, Marseille, Lille, Rouen …).
“Our proposal for the largest possible gatherings was not heard,” deplores Pierre Lacaze, in charge of elections to the PCF. The main challenge for his party is to keep its “651 town halls” and consolidate its “territorial network, especially rural”.
Rebellious France, under its own name, was almost out of the game for March. “We decided that the usefulness of rebellious France in the period and for these municipal elections was not to ostensibly plant the flag everywhere but to put ourselves almost aside to promote the involvement of people,” he said. a few days away Adrien Quatennens, number 2 of the party.
However, “we support approaches, we are present in about 550 cities in the country”, that is to say, “90% of the cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, 75% of the cities of more than 20,000 inhabitants, in a form which is the people’s federation “. “Many elected officials will claim to be rebellious France after the election,” added Mr. Quatennens, who hopes that Jean-Luc Melenchon will be a candidate in 2022 if that is his “choice”.
– “Mid-term elections” –
Each is in its logic and the logics do not always overlap, even if, ultimately, everyone hopes to get ready for the queen election, that of the presidential in 2022.
After their good results in the Europeans, the Greens, head of list in 38 of the forty cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (against 17 in 2014) want to “transform the test”, says their number one, Julien Bayou, and move forward around 2022 “in stages: European breakthrough, anchoring in municipal elections, demonstration of our ability to bring together and lead a region, the regional ones (2021) being a kind of + pre-match + before that of 2022”.
In the meantime, alliances are made according to the local context. “In Bordeaux, for example, the PS joined EELV, but not in Lyon”. The strategy is apparently winning for the head of the EELV list in the Gironde city: given at less than 20% in the polls a few months ago, the lawyer Pierre Hurmic jumped to 33% of the voting intentions in mid-February, and should give a hard time to the outgoing mayor Nicolas Florian, successor to Alain Juppe.
“Do the Greens have the ability to win without us? The answer is no,” said Pierre Jouvet, spokesperson for the PS. According to him, “the dispersal strategy (EELV) of the first round risks preventing them from reaching cities”. For its part, the PS, well established locally with about 25,000 elected officials, can “win Nancy, Limoges, and Bourges. My biggest hope is Marseille. The union of the left when it is made in the first round works well”, assures the deputy of Drome, by pretending to ignore the absence of the Greens in the Marseilles coalition.
According to him, “these municipal elections must be the act of revival of the French left that had been announced as dead after 2017. The municipal elections are elections with a national voting dimension, contrary to what is believed (Emmanuel ) Macron. This is a mid-term election for him. And it is from this election that the victories to come must be prepared and especially the possibility for the left to be in the second round “in 2022.
