Lyon (AFP)
EELV MEP Yannick Jadot said on Monday that he hoped to see Lyon become a "green capital" after having been led for almost 20 years by Gérard Collomb, support from the very beginning of Emmanuel Macron.
"I believe that if Lyon, the cradle of Macronie, becomes a green capital, it also says that nationally alternation is possible," said Mr. Jadot to AFP on the sidelines of a visit to the capital of Gaul for support the ecological candidates Grégory Doucet (town hall) and Bruno Bernard (mainland).
EELV candidates are able to win several major cities on June 28, including Lyon, and thus take a historic step.
According to Mr. Jadot, the Greens could win in Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Tours, Metz or Besançon and keep Grenoble, an enviable position which according to him illustrates "an incredible aspiration in society to have more breathable cities, to have economically dynamic and united cities, and to a renewal of the teams. "
"We, if we want to take power, it is not to occupy it, it is to exercise it, it is not to monopolize it, it is to return it to the citizens", praised the MEP during a stroll on the banks of the Rhône, before criticizing the outgoing mayor Gérard Collomb, who has renounced to run for the presidency of the metropolis to ally himself with the Republicans.
"We are witnessing a fairly permanent process of degradation, almost the decay of macronism in Lyon, the alliances demonstrate a drift towards a very conservative right", denounced Yannick Jadot. "For a very long time, certain elected officials took control of this city and it is time to make it move."
Arriving widely in the lead on March 15, the EELV candidate Grégory Doucet is the favorite to be the next mayor unless the voters turn around completely.
The match however seems tighter on the Metropolis, which concentrates most of the powers. He pits environmentalist Bruno Bernard against Senator LR François-Noël Buffet - allied with Gérard Collomb - and the outgoing president of the community David Kimelfeld, dissident LREM.
In the first round, the Greens came out on top in 8 of the Metropolitan 14 districts: enough to hope to win on June 28 with their allies. But the level of participation and the carryover of votes induced by the alliances make the verdict uncertain.
According to an Ifop-Fiducial poll published Monday evening by the monthly Lyon Capitale on its internet portal, the Greens would win 37% of total metropolitan votes, against 32% in the lists of the Collomb-Buffet duo, 26% in the lists of David Kimelfeld and 5 % for the list of Andrea Kotarac (RN), present in only three of the 14 constituencies dividing the agglomeration.
The principle of the majority premium will apply in each of them, the list arriving at the top automatically recovering half of the seats in play and the balance being distributed proportionally.
© 2020 AFP