Cédric Villani, the dandy of French politics with a spider in his lapel

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It is not nine in the morning and the control of access control to Notre Dame has sent two gendarmes to ask the swarm of journalists what we do there. They fear a demonstration and smile relaxed knowing that we wait for Cédric Villani.

Soon the door opens and the candidate for mayor of Paris begins, bullfighter, the media walkway to his first press conference, in a cafe two steps from his headquarters.

He no longer wears his hair as long as when he broke into politics. You can tell he has gone to the hairdresser. A studied bangs falls on his thick eyebrows. He has an aquiline nose and a sparse salt and pepper beard that is what the French call the first gray hair.

Dress with all the attributes that have made him famous: three-piece suit with the pocket watch on the vest . Wide knot bowtie with pin on white shirt and an eight centimeter spider on the flap. A leather bracelet on the left wrist is the only modernez of that romantic look of the nineteenth century.

The appearance is not the only singular. Your resume is exceptional. He is not only a mathematician by training, professional dedication and published works. He won the Fields Medal in 2010, considered the Nobel Prize for this science. Five years ago he chaired the support committee for Anne Hidalgo, socialist mayor of Paris. Then he joined the wave that led Emmanuel Macron to the Elysium.

He fought for the nomination of the presidential party as a candidate for mayor of the capital. The candidates campaigned but in the end, the investiture commission, after an oral examination of several hours, was decided by Benjamin Griveaux , faithful companion of the president from the beginning, former spokesman for the Government. The apparatus was imposed as in the days of old politics, before the Macron era.

Only Villani has not gone through the hoop. And it will go on its own. The municipalities are in March. But the battle of Paris is going to be epic. Last survey, IFOP, published by 'Journal du dimanche' last Sunday: Griveaux, 17%. Villani, 15%. Bomb. What comes to confirm that Paris has surrendered to Macron but doubts between his 'apparatchik' and the dissident

The capital is within reach. Hidalgo is still the first, but its 24% in the survey, compared to 34.4% at the polls five years ago says clearly that the balance of its management does not pass the approved. Behind the mayor and the macronista duo are the former minister and sole candidate of the right, Rachida Dati (14%), the Greens (13%), France Insumisa (5%) ...

Griveaux, who recently received public support from Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, called for unity: "My doors are open." Reply Villani: "Mine, too."

Said with a hesitant smile, in this café on rue d'Arcole. The candidate has underlined the symbolism of the location of his electoral office: "Next to Notre Dame, on the island of La Cité, with the City Hall two steps away and in a street named evocative." (Arcole is a battle won by Napoleon, who gave revolutionary France the dominance of northern Italy. Bonaparte, a young general at the orders of the Directory, broke through, flying a flag, in the fight for a strategic bridge. He could die but changed history). "Arcole evokes the conquest, dynamism and positive spirit that goes with it," says the rebel candidate.

"Put Paris back on track"

"The polls? They correspond to what I hear in the streets. We are in good dynamics." Villani doesn't have (yet) a program. But, as a good mathematician, he has "a method" that combines "scientific rigor" and "citizen participation" to "get Paris back on track". That last one sounds like a campaign motto and is a nod to La República En Marcha and the movement from which, En Marcha, the initials of Emmanuel Macron.

The president seemed to disavow him when, in a meeting with his parliamentarians, he said: "Those who say that the investiture commissions are illegitimate forget where they come from. What is deadly in politics is division."

Villani is a deputy and was selected by that procedure. He told us that a counselor from the Elysium called him that night to tell him that the president's words were not for him and that he was glad to see him at the meeting.

Macron has a hard time calling order. He left the Government and the socialist party to be a candidate . He destroyed the left, phagocytized the center and, now, has dynamited to the right.

In addition, someone who in 2011 declared: "I am a bit the Lady Gaga of mathematics" is not going to get rid of the nun's pinch of a presidential allusion.

Villami, about to turn 46, has two children with his wife, a biologist whom he met at the university. His parents were professors of Literature and in the family tree there is a painter, a music composer for cinema, a mathematician and jazzman and a poetess.

As a child, he scored 20 out of 20 in Mathematics, which opened the doors of the best training centers in France. From the title to teaching, flowered with publications on the subject and the passage as a guest professor by Berkeley and Princeton. All this culminated in the Fields medal.

That impressive resume is accompanied by an out of code and fashion look. He has explained it many times. "When I was 20 I told myself" Cédric, you dress like all the students. The time has come to find your identity, you will rely on chance to discover it. "So one day, in the subway, I noticed an old-fashioned shirt and said to myself: there is something to look for and I started to experience...".

His experiments resulted in a nineteenth-century dandy. Who wears today a three-piece suit with the chain watch in the vest pocket? The garment that fits your neck deserves a separate paragraph.

At first it was a 'lavallière', a name that derives from Louise de la Vallière, lover of Louis XIV. A website specialized in ties defines it this way: "A horizontal and generous bow tie knot whose ends fall like a foulard."

It is a romantic piece of air, in force at the end of the 19th century. When he acquired the status of deputy, there was a lot of mischief in the French media about whether he complied with the label of the Assembly, which requires a tie. From then to here, Villani has simplified his look and now wears a less cumbersome bowtie, never tie. It seems fixed in place thanks to a pin.

If on clothes he has been talkative, on his perpetual spider he keeps total silence: " It is the only point on which I keep an area of ​​secrecy ." It has 60. To wear as a brooch on the flap. And photos, pictures and figurines in the office. "We must not be afraid of spiders, they are allies of Humanity. Myths and fears are unfounded," he says.

Villami, dandy without fear, wants to be mayor of Paris. (To be continue).

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Paris
• Notre Dame
• Emmanuel Macron

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