- Three candidates are still in the running Anne Hidalgo (PS), Rachida Dati (LR) and Agnès Buzyn (LREM) for the second round of municipal elections in Paris, this Sunday.
- Before being faced with the polls, Sunday, they compete for a final debate Wednesday on BFM.
- Pandemic, insults, dissemination of intimate videos ... Back on this "unprecedented", "violent", "memorable", "scandalous", "rock'n'oll" campaign.
"We are going to have a very busy return to school". Pacôme Rupin is proud of its permanence in the 12th arrondissement, rented in roommate with the deputy Lætitia Avia. The Billy-style library from Ikea is full of these pretty books that you rarely open. The weather is nice this July 17, 2019 and the approach of the trough of summer is conducive to "informal" cafes. The On machine turns on. The engine rumbles. Paris, in the viewfinder, seems attainable. The next day Benjamin Griveaux - official candidate of the party for a few days - officiates for the first time at the Théâtre Libre in the 10th arrondissement. An expected entrance.
Its campaign director, Pacôme Rupine dissects the battle plan. But an article from Le Point fell a few minutes ago. Benjamin Griveaux would have taken out the big Bertha to shoot, one by one, on his former rivals for the investiture of La République in the race for the Town Hall. Discomfort is imposed in the room.
More a way of the cross than of the cross stitch
"There is a moron every day who says that he wants to be mayor of Paris", "Renson is a son of a bitch, we know it from the first day. Mounir… well… no comment ”,“ Who has been holding Bournazel by the balls since the beginning, if not me? Faced with the enumeration of the words, Pacôme Rupin sweeps the subject live: "These are private conversations". The leak is bad, but not enough to shake the team in close order. The next day, Benjamin Griveaux disembarks from the theater pit, his shirt sleeves rolled up. "I don't know how to play politics without putting my guts on the table," he warns in an overheated room with PLS air conditioning.
None of his victims are in the ranks. Another martyr: Vesoul. Municipal in Paris, "it's not the cantonal of Vesoul! What do you think we knit? ”, We also read in the“ leaks ”. In this case, his campaign will be closer to the Stations of the Cross than to the cross stitch. When in September 2019, the former mayor of the city, Jacques Chirac, dies in the midst of the municipal turmoil, many remember, in the corridors of the town hall, this sentence: "The shit, it always flies in a squadron".
"Even Black Baron, would not have imagined such a scenario"
The sentence is dropped at the start of the interview. “This campaign has been special. Even the best series, like Baron Noir , would not have imagined such a scenario: four weeks before the vote, we change the presidential candidate and, now, the coronavirus, "slips Anne Hidalgo into her vast office, whose one of the windows overlooks the carcass of Notre-Dame. The first round is in four days. The spreading covid-19 epidemic is on everyone's mind. But politically, the socialist mayor seems calm. She declared herself at the beginning of January 2020, according to a calibrated and surgical plan, with the point ready. A "Blitzkrieg" campaign lights up.
"Anne Hidalgo must be the last last person to enter the arena," repeats his entourage who has been working behind the scenes for several months to roll out the red carpet. How will it be announced? "A procession in the streets seems unlikely, but I hope that we can surprise you in this campaign", quips his first assistant and campaign director, Emmanuel Grégoire, in a local campaign, "urban forest" atmosphere. According to him, "everything is ready. The moment she wants to press the button, she can ”. Three days later, the outgoing mayor announced his candidacy in Le Parisien . Effective but not surprising. Let the party begin ?
"I have seen things in my life. And especially people to be afraid "
Paris makes you salivate. For months, applicants have been pouring in and the hype of the candidate freed from political parties has seized the capital. In his Tuileries garden market, Marcel Campion is coasting. A few days before Christmas, he sits down with Alain Madelin and balances "ecology is shit" before going to greet Santa Claus and a small person disguised as an elf. “To be armed is to have a license to kill. I've seen things in my life. And especially people to be afraid. And I can tell you that if they are armed, they take it out, and if they are even more afraid, they shoot, ”he answers a question about a possible future municipal police force in the capital. The ring road is threatened by Gaspard Gantzer (Mouvement Parisiennes, Parisiens, then LREM) who intends to keep the boulevard alive in its final hours.
Among walkers, it is the “crying telephone”. Refusing to rally to Benjamin Griveaux, Cédric Villani organized dissent and resistance from his HQ on the Ile de la Cité until he left the presidential party. “I needed this freedom to think as a scientist in particular to go against the advice of masters, of those who preceded me. Freedom has infused my entire career, ”he philosophizes on the terrace of a cafe the next day. At the end of a debate on the future of cycling in Paris, Benjamin Griveaux complains in the corridors: “Cédric Villani does not call me. "
Leaving early in the campaign, David Belliard (EELV) wants to "prevent the retrograde, conservative and reactionary Dati-Griveaux alliance from coming to power". As for Serge Federbusch, the candidate supported by the National Rally, he opposes the announced duel Hidalgo-Griveaux and wants "to put their noses in their poop". Atmosphere. More poetic, Danielle Simonnet wishes the return of sparrows and popular classes in the capital. The LR right, recovered in shreds, wakes up, with a start.
"Hostages in the 15th" and "machine gun with lies"
"What is at stake in March is the survival of the right in Paris", summarizes in October 2019, Agnès Evren, Member of the European Parliament, president of the LR Federation of Paris. A few weeks later, Rachida Dati arrives in the game and shoots out on sight. “If tomorrow, Benjamin Griveaux went to the RN, I would not be surprised. He started at the PS, he can finish at the RN, ”she said in her office in the town hall of the 7th arrondissement. It also attacks those to whom "those who swarm without any merit". The mayor of the 15th, Philippe Goujon, baron of the right, decides to go it alone in a key bastion of the poll, attracting the wrath of the candidate.
"Mr. Goujon, once in two, he was a dissident, he betrayed, there as he lost in the legislative elections, he wants to save his seat", tackle Rachida Dati onClassic Radio. Immediate response from the back of the 15th: “Rachida Dati is a lie submachine gun. […] Today, the inhabitants of the 15th are taken hostage by Rachida Dati ”, he says. Two days later, the apocalypse fell on the walkers. Originally, a leak. One more.
Bedbugs, sextape and boxes
Police at the entrance, van parked, search and water bottle that remains at the feet of security guards ... The brand new cinema 7 Batignolles (17th arrondissement) is under surveillance this February 13. Benjamin Griveaux is holding a meeting to present his project, surrounded by his supporters and all his top names by district. After having confessed to having been affected by bedbugs - "a nightmare" - he wishes in particular to tackle this "plague". But whoever assumes that morning to be a candidate "flush with the road" finds himself on the ground the same evening.
A website, called Pornopolitics, has been broadcasting an intimate video and connoted messages from Benjamin Griveaux to a young woman, Alexandra de Taddeo, girlfriend of the Russian activist Piotr Pavlenski, for the past few hours. “Basically, no one should ever be subjected to this violence. As far as I am concerned, I am not ready to expose myself and my family more when all blows are now allowed. It goes too far, ”he said in a statement recorded at AFP headquarters, in the presence of BFM Paris. He throws in the towel and is replaced at short notice by Agnès Buzyn, who leaves the Ministry of Health, in tears.
Welcomed as the messiah by the walkers, the ex-minister prides himself on "having managed things much heavier and perhaps even more dangerous than the town hall of Paris". In the elevator that goes up to the terrace of a deserted HQ, she looks back on her hasty departure from the ministry. "I didn't even have time to pack my bags," she says. A few weeks later, during an interview with Le Monde , in the first days of confinement, she launched a bomb. “From the start, I only thought of one thing: the coronavirus. We should have stopped everything, it was a masquerade. ” She will apologize for this term.
"As in all good films, what matters is the happy end"
On Sunday March 15, Anne Hidalgo came out on top with 29.3% of the vote, followed by Rachida Dati (22.7%) and Agnès Buzyn (17.3%) but the spirits are definitely elsewhere. The next day, France changes. At 8 p.m., Emmanuel Macron announces the postponement of the second round of the elections. "We are at war," he says. No one is moving. Three months later, the country is restarting and the French are invited to go to the polls this Sunday, more than 100 days after the first round, to complete what has been started.
The results of the 1st municipal
"It was a crazy, unexpected campaign, unprecedented in history by its length and its dramaturgy," reacts Gaspard Gantzer, now director of communications for Agnes Buzyn. “The presidential majority candidate gave up and the coronavirus stopped the campaign. There was also a lot of violence, especially in the debates because there is an issue. But as in all good films what counts is the happy end. Maybe things will end well for us and the Parisians, ”he concludes.
A long "scandalous", "rock'n'oll" campaign
For Danielle Simonnet (LFI) and candidate still competing in the 20th, "it was a scandalous campaign". Agnès Buzyn, keeps him from the first round… “A lot of people are angry. The social question is despised by the three candidates. And concerning the Griveaux-Buzyn soap opera, it reveals macronie. They totally discredited the political debate, "she says.
“This campaign is brand new and will be memorable in several ways. The health and economic context, we have all been traumatized by the coronavirus, we all want to live again. From a political point of view, I think the LREM photo-novel revealed the artificial aspect of their approach ", also judges Marie Claire Carrère-Gée, president of the LRI group (Les Républicains et independants) of the Paris Council and candidate of Rachida Dati in the 14th.
“It was a unique campaign in the history of the Republic. There was this confinement exercise in a city like Paris, the need for the mayor to manage this crisis in an in-between tower, it was extremely complicated, ”observes Jean-Louis Missika, lieutenant of Anne Hidalgo. “In any case, before this confinement, this campaign was rock'n'roll, with sometimes comical, sometimes strange aspects. But she illustrated the limits of LREM to anchor locally. It showed their naivety, their arrogance, their clumsiness. Finally, we saw the resilience of Anne Hidalgo, who was beaten a year ago, and who led a serious campaign, ”he says. One thing is certain, everyone will remember what may one day become a Netflix or Canal + series.
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20 seconds of context
During the campaign and before the first round, 20 Minutes met all of the candidates for mayor of Paris for an interview. On the occasion, between the two towers, only Agnès Buzyn (LREM) answered our questions, Anne Hidalgo (PS) and Rachida Dati (LR) did not respond to our requests. A final debate between the three candidates is organized this Wednesday on BFM TV.
- Rachida Dati
- Elections
- Benjamin griveaux
- Paris
- Agnes Buzyn
- Anne Hidalgo