INTERVIEW
Jean-Christophe Lagarde, president of the UDI and deputy of Seine-Saint-Denis since 2002, did he agree with "the rogue and the local caïdat"? This is what Eve Szeftel, AFP journalist based in the Bobigny office between 2014 and 2018, and author of The Mayor and the Barbarians, says when the Republic makes a deal with crime, which is released on Wednesday by Albin Michel. At the microphone of François Clauss, in Le grand journal du soir , she explains the mechanisms of this system which she has analyzed for several years.
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A pact with the number two of the barbarian gang?
In her investigation, Eve Szeftel tells how the deputy UDI sought to settle permanently in Bobigny. "It all starts in 2014. Jean-Christophe Lagarde knows that to widen his electoral base, he needs to tip this city, communist stronghold and symbol of the red suburbs. And for that he will rely on rogue", explains -t it. In doing so, he becomes, "in a way, the godfather, the architect of this system".
According to her, this kind of pact "with thuggery and with the local caïdat is something unfortunately quite common. The particularity of Bobigny, compared to other cities, is that it will go through a pact which refers to one of the worst criminal cases in recent years, the assassination of Ilan Halimi in 2006 ".
The strategy analyzed by the AFP journalist "will be based on the intimate friends of Jean-Christophe Soumbou, number two in the gang of barbarians": first his parliamentary assistant, "Jean-Christophe Soumbou's best friend" , but also "the wife of Jean-Christophe Soumbou, who poses in the center of the campaign poster and who was rewarded with a contract post in town hall after the victory. She still wears the veil, in violation of the obligation of neutrality in the public service ".
"In Bobigny, the caïds and the Islamists are in power"
Another major player in the system according to Eve Szeftel, "the party of the Indigenous people of the Republic, in particular through a consultancy firm, which will play a role before and after the takeover". "One of the associates of this cabinet will overturn the campaign by shooting a video accusing the Communists of being Islamophobic. Jean-Christophe Lagarde will also make a splash at the meeting by taking up the decolonial argument assimilating the Communists to settlers, "said Eve Szeftel again. The candidate UDI's running mate, now second assistant, "wore the veil" recalls the journalist. "You have to use great means to bring this city down," analyzes the journalist.
Between 2010 and 2014, "400,000 euros from its parliamentary reserve will be allocated to associations run by local caïds". In Bobigny, "the caïds and the Islamists who sometimes walk together are in power because that is where the money is. Municipal policy has been very favorable to community demands, such as the opening of a Islamic sports hall with hours reserved for women, subsidized by the town hall, a school without contract inaugurated by the town hall ", details the journalist. Jean-Christophe Lagarde holds, according to her, "a double discourse between the media and what is happening on the ground, by electoralism he tries to play on all fronts".
Jean-Christophe Lagarde said he wanted to sue the journalist, accusing him of manipulation, one month before the legislative elections. For her, "it is a means of intimidation by legal means which politicians use and abuse against journalists". And to conclude: "Me, I am content in an investigation to point the finger at its contradictions."