- This Thursday, Robert Ménard came to Tarascon to support Valérie Laupies, candidate for the municipal elections.
- The catch: Valérie Laupies was excluded from the RN and faces her another candidate, officially invested by the party of Marine Le Pen.
From our special correspondent in Tarascon
Robert Ménard hands his phone to his collaborator. On the screen appears the name of Julien Sanchez, RN mayor of the neighboring municipality of Beaucaire. The adviser picks up and leaves the press conference of the mayor of Béziers. Robert Ménard is indeed in full communication operation. He came specifically to Tarascon, a small town in Bouches-du-Rhône which faces Beaucaire, with a single goal: to show his support for the far-right candidate Valérie Laupies at the town hall, four days before the second round. A few minutes later, his adviser returns. Robert Ménard picks up the receiver and inquires: “Is everything all right? "
In this race for mayor to grab the chair of the outgoing LR mayor, Robert Ménard thwarted the forecasts. Here is the mayor of Béziers alongside not the candidate invested by the RN and supported, among others, by Julien Sanchez, but by his rival, Valérie Laupies. For a time a member of the political bureau of Marine Le Pen's party, the regional councilor was excluded from it in 2018. "I called the rally before the Europeans," she explains. I proposed like 18 regional advisers by a very sympathetic letter to Marine Le Pen that Nicolas Dupont-Aignan be the head of the list in the Europeans. "
"It looks like retaliation"
A position that will be fatal to him. A few days later, Valérie Laupies was banished from the National Rally. Then, last fall, the regional councilor learned that Tarascon was one of the cities targeted by the party. Established locally for a long time, and despite recent tensions, Valérie Laupies is convinced that she will represent the ideas of Marine Le Pen in Tarascon. Until the day when, in the streets of Tarascon, she came face to face with a poster with three faces: those of the leader of the RN, the mayor of Beaucaire Julien Sanchez and a certain Jean-Guillaume Remise. "It looks like reprisals," plague Valérie Laupies. It is this young regional councilor from Occitania, recently installed in the commune, that the party authorities have entrusted the task of conquering Tarascon.
On paper, the RN has hope. In a fairly poor and fractured city, opposite the commune of Beaucaire where the RN has already taken up residence, the potential of Tarascon for the far-right party is real. It was without counting on the merciless war that Valérie Laupies and Jean-Guilaume Remise were going to wage war against each other, however coming from the origin of the same political family. The two candidates presented themselves against each other in an attempt to take the town. Result: in the first round, the outgoing LR mayor, Lucien Limousin, came out on top with almost 45% of the vote, ahead of Valérie Laupies (35.76%), and Jean-Guillaume Remise (19.56%).
"You can't merge with your enemy"
And the triangular will always be in place this Sunday. The two far-right candidates did not find an agreement. "You can't merge with your enemy," says Valérie Laupies. "We are living here in a situation of total absurdity," says Robert Ménard. It is a mistake to take the risk of losing a candidate, of whom I certainly share 90% of what she says, for party bickering stories. It is a failure. It is an indignity. The controversial candidate also received the support of Jean-Marie Le Pen in her approach.
For his part, Jean-Guillaume Remise claims to have long proposed a merger. But, according to him, the regional adviser, whom Valérie Laupies calls in turn "the non-candidate" or "the impostor", was vehemently summoned to withdraw in the inter-lap, that this either on the part of Valérie Laupies herself, shortly before the deposit of the lists, or more recently of Robert Ménard. An option he couldn't solve. "20% is not nothing," he says. In this city, there are people who have expectations that deserve to be respected, and who do not understand the attitude of Valérie Laupies. In this story, it's a Laupies ego war. "
“Clients talk more about coronavirus than municipal ones”
Somewhat annoyed by the visit of Robert Ménard, Jean-Guillaume Remise put into perspective. "I'm the ball in the middle of a game of bowling. There are settling of scores, things that are beyond me and that I have nothing to do. "And to conclude:" I did the campaign I wanted to do. I have no regrets and I am serene. If Limousin is re-elected, I do not bear this responsibility. Madame Laupies had all the weapons. She will assume. "
In the middle, in fact, the outgoing mayor LR Lucien Limousin reveled. "It's the best possible configuration for me," he laughs. The only real obstacle to the realection of the councilor, according to him, would be abstention. And the risk in Tarascon is real. "The clients of the salon talk more about the coronavirus than the municipal ones," says Arthur, a hairdresser in the city center. For several weeks now, the small town has been at the heart of an epidemic outbreak, with around a hundred cases detected among seasonal workers in the surrounding fields.
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- Marseille
- Tarascon
- Robert Ménard
- War
- National gathering