Dieppe (AFP)
He is as "nice" in private as he can be "scathing" in the face of his political opponents: the PCF deputy for Dieppe Sébastien Jumel dreams of himself as the leader of the left in Normandy but EELV tenses up when he pleads for EPR nuclear reactors or vote against an immediate ban on glyphosate.
"He is someone who succeeds. He kept a constituency which was not easy. He conquered Dieppe (...) I have friends in Dieppe who do not vote Communist in other elections, but they love their deputy, "said socialist Mélanie Boulanger, head of the PS-EELV list in the regional elections of June 20 and 27, after the failure of a merger with the PCF-LFI list led by Sébastien Jumel.
The 49-year-old deputy, who is one of the three Communist spokespersons in the National Assembly, intended to keep the head of the list.
But environmentalists are seething in the face of a man who pleads for the construction of two additional EPRs in Normandy, opposes the wind farm project off Dieppe, fought the closure of the coal plant in Le Havre, voted in 2018 against the immediate cessation of glyphosate, after having pleaded in vain in 2009 for the establishment of a Seveso fertilizer plant in his town.
"How do you explain to activists who fought" for all these causes "that we should line up behind someone who has contrary ideas" with these "rearguard fights", exclaims Jean -Michel Bérégovoy deputy EELV to the mayor PS of Rouen.
Frédéric Weisz, one of the three elected EELV members of the PCF majority as mayor of Dieppe, tempers.
"Sébastien Jumel knows how to listen to his children when they talk to him about ecology".
"He is someone impetuous but faithful, extremely hard-working", assures the elected official.
"There will be a rally (in the second round). Me, I bet that I will be the first on the left", at the end of the first round, insists Sébastien Jumel, 1.87 m, graying hair.
This son of the Communists "grew in a modest working class environment where there was nothing lacking", alongside three older brothers, in Gonfreville-L'Orcher, where the petrochemical platform of Le Havre is located.
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This smoking surfer arrived in Dieppe in 1994 with, among other things, a DEA in public law obtained in Aix-en-Provence.
The young man thus started his career alongside Christian Cuvilliez, PCF mayor and future deputy for Dieppe, convicted in 2003 for fictitious jobs.
- "Extremely present" -
In 2002, Mr. Jumel began by overturning a right-wing Dieppe canton.
"I make the city up and down and across. No home escapes me. I listen. I establish personal relationships with the inhabitants. I organize press conferences in the stairwells and I am elected ", explains the deputy to AFP.
"He is an elected official extremely present, extremely attentive", recognizes André Gautier, LR municipal councilor since 2008 and vice-president of the departmental council, even if he can be as "contemptuous" for his opponents in the municipal council as he is " accessible and pleasant "with them outside the arena.
The person admits to being able to be "scathing".
Ally with environmentalists and the PS, he reconquered Dieppe in 2008. The city had turned to the right in 2001 after 30 years of communism.
He will remain mayor until his election as deputy in 2017 after having narrowly passed in the first round the MEP FN Nicolas Bay, now head of the regional list.
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In the meantime, he was beaten in 2015 at the departmental level and he experienced a very stormy first municipal mandate, marked by a break in 2013 with the PS.
The president of the PS Region Alain "Le Vern soaped the board of Sébastien Jumel" via elected PS Dieppe, assures Mr. Weisz.
The PS of Dieppe did not wish to speak.
"His intention is not necessarily the regional ones. It is in the PCF. It is fairly public knowledge that he is not very friendly with Fabien Roussel. I hope that the Normans will not bear the brunt of the expense. personal ambition, "however Mélanie Boulanger suggests.
Some in the PCF cite him as a potential successor to the party's national secretary.
© 2021 AFP