Lyon (AFP)

The boss of the Republic on the march (LREM), Stanislas Guerini, assured Tuesday that the situation would be "very clear" between Gerard Collomb and his ex-dauphin competitor for the metropolis of Lyon, David Kimelfeld, at the time of the elections of March next.

"I want them to work together and then go together," said the party's general delegate on Cnews.

Mr. Collomb, re-elected mayor since 2001, and Mr. Kimelfeld, president of the metropolis since 2017, are declared candidates for the presidency of this collectivity, a real seat of the Lyons power which will be the subject of a parallel ballot at the municipal level. municipalities of the agglomeration.

Mr. Collomb wants to leave the town hall to take over the headquarters of the metropolis that he left to Mr. Kimelfeld by going to the Ministry of the Interior in May 2017, and that he did not take it back on his return to Lyon in October 2018. But Mr. Kimelfeld intends to stay in place and has declared himself a candidate for the LREM nomination to the metropolis.

At the beginning of the summer, Emmanuel Macron met separately with the two men asking them to agree, and Gerard Collomb had proposed in the wake of sharing, in case of victory, the end of his mandate with Mr. Kimelfeld to prepare succession. But the latter immediately sent him a plea of ​​inadmissibility.

For Mr. Guerini, the solution seems to lie in a division of power between the two men, the town hall for one, the metropolis for the other, the two mandates are not cumulative.

"I do not know how to do it but I think that for the good of Lyonnaise and Lyonnais, it would be good to add the energies, these two personalities have brought much to the city and the metropolis of Lyon" he commented.

"We have not yet made our decision, we discuss and we will see but it will be very clear for the voters (...) when they will appear before them," he assured.

In an interview on Monday at The Opinion, David Kimelfeld recalled that "nothing (was) settled".

"I am a candidate for the presidency of the city to continue my work.I do not want to believe that the decision (investiture of LREM, ed) will be different.If it is the case, then it may be necessary to write a another story, "he added, threatening in his turn, half-word, to go it alone.

Over the weekend, he told the channel BFM Lyon that the investiture LREM for municipal and metropolitan Lyon was expected "late September, early October."

© 2019 AFP