Pierre Mardegan and Brigitte Bareges on the evening of their election in tandem to the departmental council of Tarn-et-Garonne, in 2015, are today opposed during the municipal elections in Montauban. - Remy Gabalda / AFP

  • Brigitte Barèges, the outgoing LR mayor of Montauban, is running for a fourth term.
  • She will have to face a united left from the first round, but also the LREM candidates and that of the RN, who all intend to challenge the favorite in the second round.
  • Security or the policy of major works launched during the last mandate are among the campaign themes.

In Montauban, political life has never been a long, calm river. For several years, alliances have been made and unmade, the friends of yesterday are the enemies of today. And these municipalities are no exception to the rule.

Elected mayor for the first time in 2001, (LR) the outgoing Brigitte Barèges decided to run for a fourth term next March. She will find challengers on her way that she knows well. In particular Pierre Mardegan with whom she had appeared in pairs with the departmental elections of 2015.

But in the meantime, politics got the better of their old friendship. The emergency doctor joined the president of the Tarn-et-Garonne departmental council, Christian Astruc, when Brigitte Barèges made her own an alliance with the radicals of Jean-Michel Baylet, her enemy of thirty years. Two years later, the same Pierre Mardegan (LREM) had also bowed to the legislative elections against the socialist Valérie Rabault who had received support… from a certain Brigitte Barèges.

"Today, I face a Barèges-Baylet-Rabault block and they do not spare me", assures the candidate supported by LREM, the UDI and the majority group in the departmental council, but who was dropped by the MoDem of Tarn-et-Garonne.

Works in the city center

The Samu official, who entered politics five years ago, believes that "people are fed up with apparatchiks" and is betting on a program centered on the greening of the city of Ingres, a calming of relations with the State and the department or the revitalization of the city center and shops.

The outgoing, she promises to continue the renewal of the city that she started, through a policy of major works in the center in recent years, which has sometimes attracted criticism. And she does not intend to be weakened by the court cases that have just caught up with her.

A little over a week ago, she indicated on her Facebook page that she was referred to correctional in a fictitious employment case dating back to 2014. For the outgoing mayor, “a strange coincidence […] One month before the electoral deadline of March 15 ”. No way for "BB", as some call it, to let the grass be cut underfoot. This is one of the characteristics of the elected Republicans, it prefers attack than defense. And as a lawyer, experienced in the mysteries of politics, she perfectly masters the rules. "Besides, it is never as good as when it is attacked," notes an observer from the Montalban political city.

Left united in the first round

Faced with it, the socialist headliners decided not to embark on the municipal battle. MP Valérie Rabault or regional councilor Patrice Garrigues have decided to devote themselves to their respective mandates. While admitting the candidacy of Arnaud Hilion, municipal councilor of the opposition, who succeeded in bringing together a large part of the left, from the Communists to the environmentalists.

I am pleased to present the full list of @PourMontauban to you.
Together, we can transform Montauban to make it an ecological, civic and united city! pic.twitter.com/S00o2zY4GF

- Arnaud Hilion (@ArnaudHilion) January 30, 2020

A tour de force at a time when citizen lists abound in the big cities of France and when the candidacies multiply on the left. And this is perhaps what will allow this teacher-researcher in mathematics, who wants to launch "a great plan of school renovation", to tickle the outgoing mayor in the second round.

Our file on municipal

What the candidate of the National Rally, Thierry Viallon, also hopes to do. Opposition municipal councilor, in 2014 he reached 10% in the first round and was able to stay in a triangular. "My objective is not to do figuration, as and when the elections pass we see our progress", poses the party representative of Marine Le Pen. With his program focused on security, the renovation of neighborhoods or even parking, he wants to stand out from Brigitte Barèges and "window projects" that she carried.

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  • The Republicans
  • LREM
  • Montauban
  • municipal
  • Brigitte Barèges