- After the first round of municipal elections on March 15, there are two candidates for mayor of Toulouse: the outgoing Jean-Luc Moudenc (LR, supported by LREM) and the ecologist Antoine Maurice (Citizen Archipelago).
- Arriving second in the first round with 27.5% of the votes cast, the challenger is now at the head of an unprecedented union of the left after the rallying of the former socialist mayor Pierre Cohen (5.6%) and a part of the running mate Nadia Pellefigue (PS-PRG-PCF, 18.5%).
- Antoine Maurice is now a winner in several polls. In the final stretch, he relies on the Toulouse residents' desire for change and their desire for a more breathable city.
Whatever its outcome, the second round of municipal elections in Toulouse will be unprecedented. Because the outgoing mayor, Jean-Luc Moudenc (LR, supported by LREM) will not have a socialist challenger in front of him but an ecologist, Antoine Maurice, whose citizen list Archipel now brings together all the left parties. Two polls give him the winner since deconfinement.
What is it like to go from the status of improbable challenger to that of favorite in polls?
Just a few months ago, all political commentators said that Jean-Luc Moudenc was unbeatable. However, with these surveys, we see that change is not only desired but possible. Wished because we saw, certainly with strong abstention, that the results of the first round expressed a great expectation of change. The polls also seem to give this atmosphere, which I find in Toulouse since the resumption of the post-containment campaign.
Do you have any reservations when the results of the 1st round suggest that the abstainers are more on the other side?
It is a mistake to believe it. There is a reservoir of environmental voices in some polling stations, but also people who challenged the division of the first round and have the possibility there to choose a large historic rally, from La France rebutted to the Radical Left Party .
This broad political spectrum therefore you speak is used by Jean-Luc Moudenc to say that you will not be able to govern. What do you say to him?
We brought together people who are not alike but have in common a project for Toulouse and its agglomeration. It is the strength of this common project that means that we will be mobilized together throughout the mandate. We had already been told with Citizen Archipelago, "all this is going to blow up, you will never be able to hold on", we demonstrated from the first round that this wide gathering with people of different cultures and national ideas is possible. Besides, in the first round the Toulouse people were not mistaken.
You also have this image of someone conciliatory, will you have the necessary grip?
I have a political history, I have demonstrated my ability to manage. I am also director of a structure, president of another, I already exercise responsibilities. So, yes, it may not be the capalized version of Jean-Luc Moudenc with a team that explodes at the end of the mandate. I believe more in collective intelligence, in listening. This does not prevent me at the end from deciding and I think I demonstrated it in my journey, then in the countryside, including in the rally of the second round. I held positions. If I had been nice, I would have agreed to give Nadia Pellefigue the presidency of the metropolis.
How can you reassure Toulousans who consider, like Jean-Luc Moudenc, that some of your running mate are "dangerous"?
I would like him to tell me why our project is dangerous. I did not amuse myself to say that his list was far-right because he has running members of the Manif pour tous, he has running members from the Dupont-Aignan or Common sense party . Our list is no more far left than hers is far right. She is diverse and I assume it, with common fights, others more personal.
The question is how we understand the exercise of power. I want to be the mayor of dialogue and appeasement I want to be the mayor of all Toulousains to build with them and the team solutions so that everyone finds their place. Jean-Luc Moudenc proved during this campaign that he was a mayor who divides, who opposes, who stigmatizes.
You blame him for being stuck in the 80s. Why?
First, because he has been elected for 33 years, since the time when I returned to CP and learned to read. And in these 33 years, he was still elected for 27 years, including ten as mayor. So already, it carries a heavy responsibility in the situation of the city, which is increasingly suffocating, where people can no longer find accommodation, whether they are of the working or middle class, the lack of green spaces.
Then, certainly in the Covid crisis, he discovered an interest in cycle paths with tactical town planning that we had also suggested to him. We have seen that for the most part, it did so only on a few axes. For the car, he continues to hold the discourse of "at the same time" which is in reality the maintenance of a policy which does not develop public transport or soft modes. This would require money, but also courage. There is no real desire to share public space, it is in this old-fashioned management which was based on a flourishing economy with aeronautics and led to this political laziness.
Are you for or against the third metro line?
For me the debate on public transport is no longer that of the third metro line. It took place in 2014, Jean-Luc Moudenc was elected on this project and he advanced on it. Even if, in the team, we had nuances on the phasing, we have in common to keep the 3rd metro line because I will not be the mayor who erases the projects or cancels them. Is it funded today? The answer is no. We will therefore maintain it in a global plan which at the start of my mandate will advance a bus emergency plan, the Toulouse RER project from existing SNCF lines.
We also want to extend line B to Labège which has been suspended, relaunch the extension of the tram, at least to the station, and think about extending the cable car to Malepère. The aim is to have an improved public transport network after six years, as an alternative to cars. Where Jean-Luc Moudenc, if re-elected, will return in 2026 to promise us a third time his third metro line.
The results of the municipal elections in Toulouse
Has the Covid crisis changed things?
On the merits of the project, not that much. In fact, the only subject, but one that is difficult to assess, is the financial question. Because we know very well that the crisis will also affect communities and that, more than ever, the question of priorities will arise. We prioritize responding to social and environmental needs.
What we are experiencing with the health crisis is what we explained that we could live tomorrow through food and energy crises. It reveals the fragility of our territory. It shows us that we have to develop another way of doing politics that is less accounting, managerial and short term. This policy must prepare us to be more resilient on food self-sufficiency, on a diversification of the economy, and on an energy management that allows us to be more independent and less dependent on the vagaries of the weather and on natural resources which we know 'They are not infinite.
If you were to describe Toulouse in 2026, after a possible "Mauritius mandate"?
It will be a more peaceful city, with the development of pedestrianization not only in the city center but also in the heart of the neighborhood and secure cycle paths which will allow more Toulouse residents to use the bicycle on a daily basis. A city that will breathe more and where you will feel better, with more trees and green spaces, “oasis schools” for example. A city more alive culturally, with a reappropriation of public space in the idea of poeticizing it. A more accessible city because we will have acted on housing to ensure that all populations can rehabilitate Toulouse. Suddenly, a city that will be seen in France - and I hope beyond - as an exemplary city because it will have developed this new culture of ecological transition, giving it an interest not only to live there but to come the to visit.
Municipal
Municipal in 2020 in Toulouse: How did the environmentalist Antoine Maurice manage to emerge within the Citizen Archipelago?
Municipal
Municipal in 2020 in Toulouse: A left gathered at the forceps facing the outgoing mayor LR
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