Sète (AFP)

The mayor of Béziers (Hérault) Robert Ménard assured Wednesday that the former boss of the Republicans of Hérault Sébastien Pacull had fulfilled his "dream" by taking the head of a "union of rights" list supported by the National rally (RN) for the municipalities in Sète.

"Thanks to Sébastien, it's a dream come true," said Mr. Ménard during a meeting alongside Mr. Pacull, candidate for mayor of Sète.

"The union of the rights" is "the obvious, but it must be done against political parties," said Mr. Ménard, elected mayor of Béziers in 2014 with the National Front, renamed from RN, to the favor of a triangular.

Mr. Ménard mocked the declarations of the president of the Republicans Christian Jacob speaking of an "epiphenomenon" about the departure of militants and elected LR towards lists RN or supported by this party as in Nîmes, Vauvert (Gard) or Lunel (Hérault ).

"In the six years that I have been running Béziers, no one today tells me that it is fascism that runs", assured Mr. Ménard, who is running for the municipal elections in March in a divided political landscape. "No one can say that when one is supported by the RN, one walks in the streets ... the raised hand in brown shirt", hammered the ex-president of Reporters without Borders (RSF).

In front of some 300 activists, Mr. Pacull praised the support of the mayor of Béziers, a "model", whose success according to him is "exemplary".

"Orders I take from no one" but "informed advice I listen to them," said the 45-year-old wealth manager, presenting himself as "a man on the right who does not compromise with Macronie". "I assume these people support me," he added of the RN.

Mr. Pacull, who was deputy mayor of Sète, François Commeinhes, for 12 years, castigated what he called the "sinking" of the outgoing councilor, who received the double investiture of LREM and LR.

"The Republicans had appointed me as the leader, they betrayed me," said the former boss of LR Hérault excluded by his original party in January.

The Sétois candidate of the "union of the rights" also made several allusions against immigration greeted by hearty applause.

The meeting ended with a Marseillaise sung standing in a room called Georges Brassens, named after the singer and libertarian poet born in Sète.

© 2020 AFP