Marseille (AFP)

The campaign for the succession of Jean-Claude Gaudin has gone into high gear with the candidacy in Marseille of one of his relatives, Martine Vassal, who will have to overcome the division of his camp to hope to keep this bastion of Republicans.

"Today, I want to get started, I want to, because I was born for that, to succeed," chanted Mrs. Vassal, who cumulates the presidencies of the metropolis Aix-Marseille and the department of Bouches-du- Rhone - she promises to give up this last cap if she is elected.

With this officialization, the right Marseille, which runs the second city in France for a quarter of a century under the leadership of Jean-Claude Gaudin, 79, is left with two contenders. The other is Bruno Gilles, senator 58 years, also close to the mayor and president of the influential federation of Bouches-du-Rhone Republicans.

While the party rejected after the election of its president in October the question of the nomination of a candidate for Marseille as for Paris, Mrs. Vassal as Mr. Gilles said ready to "go to the end", with or without the party label.

For Gilles, his rival defends a "paradoxical" position by campaigning for the town hall with one foot to the department and the other to the city. For Vassal, the first woman at the head of an important list in the recent history of the city, Gilles "has made the choice of a national career" in favoring his position as senator to that of mayor sector.

Tutelary figure of the right, Jean-Claude Gaudin, who had never clearly designated a dolphin, dubbed Vassal in the minutes following his candidacy: "It carries for Marseille a vision and an ambition that clearly designate it to lead to a Republican list of vast gathering ".

Several local figures of LR have engaged, as well as the president of region Ile-de-France Valerie Pécresse, expressing their support for Mrs. Vassal. That was not enough: Mr. Gilles told AFP that he rejected the Mayor's "slightly indecent" proposal to run the LR list in the Senate in exchange for an "agreement" with Mrs. Vassal.

- "Permanent casting" -

Despite the dubbing of the mayor, Mrs. Vassal kept her distance from her announcement, with a record not always easy to wear, in a city marked by its delay in transportation, pollution, the state of its schools or the drama of the rue d'Aubagne, where the collapse of two buildings killed 8 people in November 2018.

"I respect Mr. Gaudin a lot," but his "assessment is not mine," said Martine Vassal, who was however one of his assistants from 2001 to 2015. "We need experience but also new blood, "she added.

The argument makes his opponents smile: Martine Vassal is "the heiress of Jean-Claude Gaudin", his "political father", reacted Senator Stéphane Ravier, candidate of the National Rally.

Martine Vassal "is part of this record, she can try to make her forget, but that's an observation," said LREM MP Said Ahamada. Before making an irony about the two candidatures on the right: "I wish for courage to the right to get along!"

The Marseille file is however not settled either on the side of the presidential majority: En Marche! In the summer, he stroked an alliance with the right, and two candidates for the candidacy, Mr. Ahamada and the academic Yvon Berland, confronted each other. "Now it's time for LREM to nominate his candidate" and start his campaign, says the latter.

On the left finally, parties and elected privilege for the moment an attempt of common program then union between different sensitivities, with several "collective citizens".

"We live in the most polluted city in the country and the most bottled in Europe, Marseille needs something other than a permanent casting to find out who is the most beautiful or the smartest," says the leader. from the PS to the city, Benoît Payan.

© 2019 AFP