Marseilles (AFP)

"I was not allowed to play with fire" against the RN, explained Jean-Laurent Félizia, the environmental leader of the union list of the left in Paca, to justify his about-face on Monday and his withdrawal from the second round of regional elections.

Sunday, "I will vote (Renaud) Muselier to beat Thierry Mariani and his sad cohort" of the National Gathering, insisted during a press conference the ecological municipal councilor of Lavandou (Var), refusing to "leave Marine Le Pen", the president of the far-right party, "to make Paca the stepping stone of his disastrous presidential ambitions".

On the evening of the first round, Jean-Laurent Félizia had created a surprise by announcing that he maintained the union list of the left and the ecologists, without the rebels, came third with 16.9% of the votes, regional in Provence -Alpes-Côte d'Azur, the only region in France where the RN (36.4%) finished first in the first round, with 4.47 points ahead of the list of outgoing LR president Renaud Muselier (31, 9%).

"With these differences and two thirds of the voters who did not vote, this second round was uncertain, too uncertain, dangerous, too dangerous", recognized Monday the environmentalist leader, evoking "a heartbreaking choice which was posed to all ".

"We had a human, frank, personal, moving debate. He put face to face the choice between two responsibilities: that of recomposing the left or of exposing himself to a short-term danger", explained the elected official.

"There was no right choice but it was my responsibility to take one."

Responding to those who reproach him for having yielded to the diktat of the national authorities of the left parties and EELV who had asked him to withdraw, Jean-Laurent Félizia assured that it was "not the pressures that (had) carried (his) decision "but" the concern of the general interest ".

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Renaud Muselier immediately welcomed in a press release "a republican decision" which "responds in a courageous and clear way to the demand for a rally against the extreme right".

On the other hand, the leader RN Thierry Mariani denounced on Twitter the withdrawal of the leftist list which he had welcomed the maintenance of on the evening of the first round: "Unable to convince the voters, here they are all united - from communists to macronists , socialists at LR - to try to prevent the popular will from expressing itself, "he wrote.

"If Muselier wins Sunday in PACA, our region will then become the only region won by Macron", added the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy in reference to the opening of Renaud Muselier's list to members of the presidential majority .

© 2021 AFP