- Two parties, France Insoumise (LFI) and Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), launched the electoral campaign in pairs during the 2020 municipal elections in Lille.
- For a political science researcher, "the citizen lists are in vogue and the list leaders of these parties are not known at all".
- A new strategy that raises the question of number 1 in this kind of election.
Campaigning in pairs, a new idea. Two parties, France Insoumise (LFI) and Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), anchored this practice during the 2020 municipal elections in Lille. But what is the point of such an approach knowing that in the end, there will be only one mayor? 20 Minutes asked Rémi Lefebvre, a researcher in political science at the University of Lille, the question.
"A desire to do collectively"
"It is not neutral that it is rather left parties that offer this form of collegiality, this desire to be collective," explains Rémi Lefebvre. Citizen lists are in vogue and the list leaders of these parties are not known at all. So it's easier to form a pair when there is no obvious leadership. It is also a way of making yourself known by proposing a specificity. "
LFI is fully involved in this process. “This choice of a team to lead the campaign was prompted by LFI's national management. It was a question of avoiding personifying the campaign to encourage the citizens who are not at all militant to get involved ”, explains Elodie Cloez, co-leader of file in Lille for the list baptized“ Decide for Lille ”.
With this strategy, LFI was able to attract a hundred potential candidates to lead or participate in this list. Because leader does not necessarily mean top of the list. It is this weekend that this list on the left must designate its head of the final list.
A trademark
At EELV, on the other hand, the idea of the pair is almost a trademark. “Gender parity has existed since 1984 in the Greens' statutes. We have two regional co-secretaries, two national co-spokespersons, ”specifies Stéphanie Bocquet co-head of the list at the start of the campaign, before supporting the candidacy of her male running mate.
"The binomial system during the last departmental elections also installed this idea of parity in the political landscape," points out Rémi Lefebvre. That said, parity remains complicated since in France, only 16% of mayors are women. "
A very masculine Lille metropolis
And if parity must be respected in the municipalities, this is not the case in the communities of municipalities, agglomerations or in urban metropolises which are not local authorities but public establishments for inter-municipal cooperation (Epic). And that changes everything, because nothing forces these instances to a parity.
"It is at the Lille metropolis that it is urgent to find a balance between women and men, because the assembly and the vice-presidents are very masculine", regrets the ecologist Stéphanie Bocquet. Especially since it is within these “communities” that powers are increasingly concentrated.
Why a number 1, by the way?
This situation is also explained by the fact that French politics likes to personalize votes and power. "It is true that people are asking for more collective but at the same time, they also like to have a benchmark person". The famous myth of the providential man (or woman).
Because is the municipal election doomed to remain a question of personality? "We would be perfectly entitled to ask the question of number 1 on the lists since it is a municipal council that we elect, and not a mayor," notes Rémi Lefebvre. But it is true that voters today need an incarnation. "
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- municipal
- Parity
- Lille
- Election campaign