Julien Bayou, the environmental candidate for the regional in Île-de-France, at the head of the left forces, announced Thursday in a tweet: "That's it, we are united with Audrey Pulvar and Clémentine Autain for the ecology and solidarity in Ile-de-France! "

The merger of the three left-wing lists competing for the regional in Ile-de-France was sealed Monday around the ecologist Julien Bayou who achieved the best score among them in the first round, and will try on Sunday to beat the outgoing Valérie Pécresse.

After a dozen hours of negotiations, with a lot of "calculators" and "cross products", according to an observer, the white smoke appeared in the early afternoon in the form of a tweet from Julien Bayou : "That's it, we are united with Audrey Pulvar and Clémentine Autain for ecology and solidarity in Ile-de-France!"

Free transport for those under 25? 

Arrived at the negotiating table in the middle of the night, in the wake of the late announcement of the results, the three candidates concluded a merger agreement that they were to present during a joint trip to Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint- Denis) at the end of the afternoon.

The opportunity for Julien Bayou to present himself for the first time as a leader of the troops after having won, with 12.95% of the vote, a tight "primary" in front of Audrey Pulvar (11.07), supported by the PS, and Clémentine Autain (10.24), candidate for LFI and the PCF.

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From Sunday evening, the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, of which Audrey Pulvar is the deputy, calling for "a large gathering of left-wing forces and environmentalists" alongside Julien Bayou, and Clémentine Autain, evoking a "alliance of the three lists led by Julien Bayou ", had put an end to the theoretical suspense. But what about the practice, and first of all about the programmatic agreement? Audrey Pulvar had made the progressive free public transport a non-negotiable proposition, while Julien Bayou was opposed to it, believing that one could not carry out simultaneously "the renovation and the free".

According to Céline Malaisé (PCF), present at the negotiations for Clémentine Autain and questioned by AFP, the agreement provides for free public transport for those under 25, which Clémentine Autain promised, without a timetable but with "the objective of trying to broaden social pricing as much as possible ".

During the campaign, Clémentine Autain and Julien Bayou had also united against the Triangle de Gonesse station project (Val-d'Oise), while Audrey Pulvar had remained further back.

According to Céline Malaisé, the merger agreement provides for "preserving the agricultural land" of Gonesse and Saclay (Essonne), another urbanization project contested by environmentalists.

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Still in transport, the region's flagship skill, the three candidates took a stand on "refusing to open up to competition", according to the elected Communist.

While Julien Bayou wanted to transform Le Bourget into a "gigantic park", the three candidates also adopted a "long-term" strategy of "reconversion of the aeronautical and automotive sectors" for the business airport, in order to "preserve the jobs and thinking about the jobs of tomorrow, ”says Céline Malaisé.

Does the left have a chance to win in Île-de-France? 

Will this be enough to push back to the left a region that Valérie Pécresse had torn from her in 2015? With a total of 34.26% of the votes in the first round, the three cumulative lists are close to the score of Valérie Pécresse (35.94%). What makes Julien Bayou say, Monday morning on franceinfo, that "there is a huge chance" to beat the outgoing. But according to a survey carried out in early June with the three hypotheses tested in the second round, the postponement of votes is not total for Julien Bayou (27%) and Valérie Pécresse would be re-elected.

Sunday evening, the latter made no secret of its main opponent, lambasting the "coalition of a radical left which includes the extreme left of Mr. Mélenchon" and seeking to grab the votes of Jordan Bardella (RN, 13 , 12%) and Laurent Saint-Martin (LREM, 11.76%): "To abstain or disperse the votes, by voting RN, or even by voting LREM, it is to elect this extreme left", has t -she says.