Paris (AFP)
The regional of June 20 and 27 promise to be more difficult than the municipal last year for the left, but environmentalists and socialists each want to show that the dynamic is on their side in view of the presidential election.
The eternal question of the union of the lefts finds a simple answer to these regional ones: it will not be realized in most cases until the second round, when the stakes allow it.
The triumphant announcement of a union of the four main formations (EELV, PS, LFI, PCF) in Hauts-de-France, led by Green Karima Delli, has not been imitated in other regions.
On paper, the list led by the ecologist Jean-Laurent Félizia in PACA came close to it, but at the end of an incredible scenario that defies analysis: tutelage of local ecologists by the national party, daily battle for places on the list, quarrels with LFI and the citizen component ...
Elsewhere, the lefts left divided into three lists (not counting Lutte Ouvrière) in Île-de-France, Brittany, New Aquitaine, Occitanie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté;
in two lists in the Grand-Est, Pays de la Loire, Normandy and Center-Val-de-Loire ...
"We thought that the rally was possible, we had rather the demonstration of the important division on the left", regrets to AFP the head of the elections to the Communist Party Pierre Lacaze, whose party especially nourishes the hope of seeing the Sébastien Jumel's list in Normandy to arrive first on the left against the PS and EELV united.
# photo1
"The political message would have been simpler and the dynamics are built in the first round", abounds the head of the elections to the PS, Pierre Jouvet.
Who accuses the ecologists of not having "returned the favor" after the support of the Socialists to EELV in several regions.
- Logo against notoriety -
Because what is played on the left is much more competition between the PS and EELV, who want to arrive at the union negotiations for the presidential election, in the fall, with a dominant position.
The primary objective of the PS is to conserve its regions (New Aquitaine, Brittany, Center-Val-de-Loire, Occitanie, Bourgogne-France-Comté).
And in these regions the ecologists, who were part of the outgoing majority, want to steal them from them so as not to play the supporting roles.
The Greens, who surprised at the Europeans in 2019 and won several big cities in 2020, know however that these regions will send a less conquering sign. Adding to the strength of some outgoing PS, the candidates for a new mandate on the right are much more solid than those of the municipal ones, as shown by all the polls in Hauts-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or still in Grand-Est.
Party leader Julien Bayou also told AFP that he would jump to the ceiling for "one or two regions" won, while recalling the official objective of the party: "To strengthen its number of regional advisers".
He himself, a candidate for the head of the IDF region, hopes to lead the left in the first round, in order to rally it behind him in the second;
but it seems for the time being far from being able to compete with the ex-LR Valérie Pécresse.
# photo2
Everywhere, environmentalists are secretly betting on the dynamics of the last few days which had brought them to the previous interim elections.
"The green ballot with the logo will count more in the voting booth than the notoriety", hopes a strategist of the party in private.
Before acknowledging that the Greens start from lower than in the municipal ones in the big cities: "The polls give us between 8 and 12% at the national level, it is not incredible. But it is a huge increase compared to 2015".
EELV's attention is focused in particular on the Pays de la Loire, where the ecologist Matthieu Orphelin, ironically a personality external to the party and former macronist, ally for the occasion to La France insoumise, is given the winner by a recent poll. .
© 2021 AFP