The man with the spider pin will eventually go it alone for the municipal elections. The candidate for mayor of Paris Cédric Villani refused, Sunday, January 26, to "get closer to Benjamin Griveaux", as asked him Emmanuel Macron.

The mathematician said he preferred "to remain faithful to Parisians", rather than playing "belonging to a political apparatus": "My campaign for Paris continues in complete independence", he launched at his exit from the Élysée, after more than an hour of interview with the Head of State.

Press release: Cédric Villani maintains his independent candidacy for the Paris City Hall. pic.twitter.com/34XuonY3Nl

- Cédric Villani (@VillaniCedric) January 26, 2020

Stanislas Guerini, general delegate of the Republic on the move, reacted on Monday morning on Classic Radio to the words of Cédric Villani. "I will ask my executive office on Wednesday evening to confirm that he is no longer a member of the running Republic," he said.

After several months of parallel campaign by the two candidates from the ranks of LREM, many voices in the entourage of the president were raised so that he intervened in favor of Benjamin Griveaux.

Cédric Villani preferred to break off on his own, to the chagrin of the presidential party. And this, at the risk of making even more difficult a victory in Paris, as evidenced by the last Odoxa-CGI poll for Le Figaro, published on Sunday. It places Benjamin Griveaux in third position (16%), far behind Anne Hidalgo (23%) and Rachida Dati (20%), while Cédric Villani is placed fifth (10%), behind the environmentalist David Belliard (14.5 %).

"Divergences of point of view"

Baptiste Fournier, Cédric Villani's campaign director, indicated that the candidate "[took note] of the announcement of exclusion from LREM made by Stanislas Guerini". According to him, Cédric Villani "does not turn his back on the President of the Republic. It is like love stories: from time to time, there may be differences of point of view".

Benjamin Griveaux assures, for his part, that his "door will always remain open". But Cédric Villani is eyeing rather on the side of environmentalists and their idea that he considers "essential and central" of a "climate coalition" - which would go as far as rebellious France - carried by the candidate EELV David Belliard.

The latter welcomed, Monday, the end of refusal of Cédric Villani to Emmanuel Macron, but he considers that it is only "a step" and called on Public Senate to "a very clear program" around the "values" it carries.

Praising the "courageous step" and "the convictions" of Cédric Villani, Yannick Jadot, the leader of EELV, called on France 2 Cédric Villani and David Belliard to "make a concrete offer" to Parisian voters, to " put content ". Yannick Jadot's partner, Isabelle Saporta, is already making a commitment to the mathematician. "I am going to be a candidate for him, in the 14th or a bordering district," assures Le Monde the journalist who recently left the campaign of Gaspard Gantzer.

With AFP

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