Lille (AFP)

Violette Spillebout, LREM candidate in the municipal elections in Lille, fired Thursday her campaign director, former Senator Dominique Bailly (ex-PS), accused of having, through lobbying through his consulting firm, torpedoed in the Senate a emblematic measure desired by the government.

"Following several discussions with Dominique Bailly, we decided by mutual agreement to put an end to his mission as campaign manager," Spillebout said in a statement.

On Monday, Letter A revealed that Dominique Bailly had intervened before the parliamentary debate in the Senate, in September, on the draft circular economy law to vote against the consignment of plastic bottles, yet defended in the Chamber by Brune Poirson , Secretary of State for Ecological Transition.

The measure was finally rejected unanimously, so LREM senators voted against it.

Dominique Bailly recently created a consulting firm in public affairs, P & B Partners Conseil, with Gilles Pargneaux, former MEP and former boss of the PS Nord federation, also in La République en marche.

Gilles Pargneaux is also close to Violette Spillebout, as is Senator LREM Frédéric Marchand (formerly PS), Vice-Chair of the Committee on Regional Planning and Sustainable Development in the Senate and LREM leader during the parliamentary debate on Ms. Poirson's text.

The firm P & B Partners Council worked this summer on behalf of the Professional Federation of recycling companies (Federec), standing up against this device for consigning plastic bottles. "Everyone was able to see Bailly and Pargneaux get busy in the corridors of the Senate just before the debate on the bill," told AFP a parliamentary source.

Violette Spillebout said in her statement that the departure of her campaign manager, who will be replaced "mid-November", is due to the fact that Mr. Bailly "wished both to step back to focus on his professional activities" and "protect (his) campaign for municipal elections".

On Tuesday, the Macronist candidate had yet reaffirmed his confidence in Dominique Bailly, judging that his activities at the head of his consulting firm were "nothing questionable or exceptional" and that his "position" in his campaign was "not to blame".

In her press release, she denounced the "maneuvers undertaken to weaken (her) action and (her) team in Lille and weaken in particular the personalities from the socialist party who decided to join".

A source LREM Lille, however, assured AFP Thursday that leaks to the press on the duo Bailly-Pargneaux came "for sure walkers themselves". "There is really a terrible atmosphere within LREM in the North and, since its inauguration for the municipal (in July), Violette has failed to federate the walkers," says this source.

© 2019 AFP