Lyon (AFP)
After 20 years of reign over Lyon, will Gérard Collomb ensure his succession by passing the torch to the right? It is the bet he tries by allying himself with LR, against the Greens, in the second round of the elections, while renouncing the first role.
"This is a moment that may surprise because we come from different political families," agreed the former interior minister on Thursday, speaking alongside his new partners.
"But today we want a union to face the coming crisis and allow the reconstruction of Lyon," added the outgoing mayor.
This rapprochement had been felt for a few months and the slap received on March 15 by Collomb, who had come last from the favorites in the race for the metropolis, the real seat of power in Lyon, made it even more likely.
Nobody expected, on the other hand, that the baron invested by LREM would give up running for the presidency of the community in favor of François-Noël Buffet (LR). In exchange, the candidate on the right on the city, Étienne Blanc, fades behind Yann Cucherat, colt of Collomb.
"I proposed it from our first meeting," said Collomb during a joint press conference, organized the day after an interview with the boss of the region, Laurent Wauquiez. A timing that has not escaped their opponents.
"It is an agreement between Collomb and Wauquiez, an unnatural alliance, which takes the current crisis as an alibi, in defiance of the voters," denounces David Kimelfeld, dissident LREM candidate for president of the metropolis which he has directed since 2017. At the time, Collomb had entrusted it to him before the two men fell out.
"Gérard Collomb proposes a new political project: the plural right", quipped Sandrine Runel, candidate of the United Left (around the PS) about to merge with the Greens.
Their leader in the metropolis, Bruno Bernard, evokes him "an anti-climate coalition, made not to carry a project but simply to oppose the victory of environmentalists".
- "Red line" -
The interested parties do not hide it.
Since the Greens, who should also ally themselves for the second round to the candidate supported by LFI, have largely won the first, arriving in the lead in eight metropolitan constituencies out of 14 and eight districts out of nine in the City, the right and the Camp Collomb wave the red rag of the green danger and the far left.
Not without forcing the line: to hear them, "dogmatism", "sectarianism" and strategy of "degrowth" would threaten the future of the second agglomeration of France, governed for a long time in a centrist consensus.
"We are worried about what we can read in the electoral platforms," Etienne Blanc said again on Thursday.
"It's a bit like Russian tanks in 1981," laughs an observer - some announced their arrival on Place de la Concorde in the event of François Mitterrand being elected President of the Republic.
It remains to be seen how this rapprochement will be received by voters.
"This is not a small challenge, it is the beginning of an important ambition outside of any device agreement," said François-Noël Buffet.
In fact, the scenario did not convince the management of LREM. Stanislas Guerini estimated that Collomb had "crossed a red line" and evoked a withdrawal of the investiture of Yann Cucherat.
"In all my political life, I have not been corporalized," retorted Collomb, who had not warned neither Emmanuel Macron nor anyone else. What to regret the presidential party for having granted the nomination rather than David Kimelfeld.
The latter believes that "this news gives away all cards". And he intends to discuss it with the Greens in the coming days.
© 2020 AFP