Bordeaux (AFP)

Some try citizen lists, others go on campaign with the extreme left or the National Rally (RN): the "yellow vests" of the region of Bordeaux, which was a bastion of the movement, go to the municipalities in scattered and very limited order.

The "yellow vests", "it goes from the far right to the far left," says Pascal Chauvet, who leads Bordeaux Democracy Bordelaise, a "list apartisan. The GJ are on the initiative but it does not it's not just GJ's in it. "

"If we start with one party, we cut ourselves off from all the others. The importance of the GJ movement is that we all stay together," added this 61-year-old sales representative, who was always looking to end the week the necessary list of 65 names.

It is in Bordeaux, the regional capital, that Saturday after Saturday, since "Act I" of November 17, 2018, thousands of "yellow vests" from all over Aquitaine gathered until peaking in January 2019 to 6,000, according to a police figure.

Since then, their number has spectacularly plummeted on the banks of the Garonne: "The movement continues but in a very limited way", assures the sociologist Frédéric Neyrat who scrutinizes it, especially in Aquitaine, "the + yellow vests + no longer have the report of strengths".

Especially since the European flop - less than 1% of the vote for the GJs - has gone through this, that the movement does not like overhanging heads and that "union mobilization has changed the calendar", continues this professor from the University of Rouen.

"We could have imagined GJ lists of different sensitivities but for the moment, electoral competition is returning to its usual forms," ​​he adds.

- "Getting a mayor is very complicated" -

Also, Antoine Boudinet, 27, has "no claim to be the candidate of the GJ" even if he has become - "despite me", he says - a media figure of the movement.

This geography student who had his hand torn off by an explosive police grenade, joined in Bordeaux the list led by the ex-presidential candidate Philippe Poutou, which brings together the NPA (New Anticapitalist Party), a collective supported by LFI (La France Insoumise), associations, "yellow vests".

"What got me excited was being on a list that was not affiliated with a party. It's my GJ side," he said.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Patrice Manterola leads the RN list to Cubnezais, in this impoverished Haute-Gironde where the party of Marine Le Pen intends to pull out of the game.

"I have been a GJ from the start," says this territorial official who decided to "invest himself. But I prefer that people know my label well. Putting my GJ commitment first, it would be dishonest, it would be recovery" .

Eric Poret, also head of the RN list not far from there in Ambarès-et-Lagrave, "has drawn up a program halfway between the RN and the GJ, with ideas developed on roundabouts, social justice, democracy participative, transparency, etc ", says this driver of TER who was on strike against the pension reform.

And he will face a list "without label" but led by a known GJ organizer in Bordeaux, David Poulain, outgoing municipal councilor DVD.

"Going to win a mayor is very complicated," admits Daniel, who does not want to give his name, a "yellow vest" used to events and roundabouts in Gujan-Mestras, on the Arcachon basin.

"And then, what is the use of presenting a list to make, 2, 3 or 4%. It is useless!" Sighs the retiree, a former worker at Dassault.

This mobilization "will have enabled them to mobilize as voters", concludes the sociology professor who expects "a renewed participation".

© 2020 AFP