Perpignan (AFP)

The mayor of Perpignan Louis Aliot launched Friday the campaign of his coalition for the departmental, hoping that the Pyrénées-Orientales can be the "spearhead of the national reconquest" of the RN in 2022.

Surrounded by several regional and departmental candidates formerly included in Les Républicains, the councilor of the largest city in France led by the National Gathering was delighted to see those who "join us everywhere in France for these elections", ensuring that 'there would be others.

He referred in particular to the rallying of Breton businessman Florent de Kersauson as head of the RN list in Morbihan, or that of Héraultais Cédric Delapierre, regional secretary LR and UDI at the regional council of Occitanie.

Jean-Paul Garraud, former LR deputy and RN candidate for the presidency of the Occitanie region, and the mayor of Baixas (Pyrénées-Orientales) Gilles Foxonet, candidate for departmental and also ex-LR, were present at the press conference alongside Mr. Aliot.

These "shifts (...) foreshadow the recomposition of French political life," said the mayor of Perpignan.

For him, the RN "is now in a logic of bringing together all the patriots, nationals and right-wing republicans, and does not exclude a small part of the patriotic left" in these electoral lists.

"The political lines are moving, (...) We must now move on," said Mr. Garraud for his part, believing that the LR party was experiencing its "last upheavals".

"They are losing their pedals, losing the ball. This pantalonnade (of LR) is serious for them, but a good thing for France," he said.

"We have nothing extremist, nothing excessive," he said.

Mr. Aliot said he was sure that "a certain number of dikes, benchmarks (were going) to move, allowing coalitions between elected members of the RN and other (parties) to lead regions and departments".

According to him, a victory is "also possible" in the departments "of the whole of the Mediterranean rim, as well as in a part of the North and the East of France".

The mayor of Perpignan has castigated the Socialist Party at the head of the Pyrénées-Orientales "for too long".

This department has been run by the left since 1945, with an interlude from the right (UDF) between 1982 and 1998.

"The power in place in the department represents more or less what Jean-Marc Pujol (former LR mayor of Perpignan) represented: an outdated system, without ideas or ideal".

© 2021 AFP