A couple of days spent on a jolly in Bordeaux mid-week and an exceedingly long birthday lunch party at a neighbour’s house put paid to any plans for the usual Sunday summary from Poitiers, but the extra day has given me time to catch up with the French municipal elections, which took place yesterday.
Many of the headlines this morning talk of a ‘green tsunami’ or a ‘green revolution’, and it’s fair to say that by winning here in Poitiers, as well as in Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Tours, and Grenoble, the environmentalist EELV (Europe Écologie les Verts) have established themselves as a leading political force. One of the most striking aspects of their various victories is the relative political inexperience of their candidates. Jeanne Barseghian in Strasbourg and Pierre Hurmic in Bordeaux are lawyers, and Grégory Doucet in Lyon works for a humanitarian aid organisation. They were unknown to the general public and had never previously been elected in any political capacity. Now they will be running some of the largest cities in France.
Here in Poitiers, our new mayor is Léonore Moncond’huy, who has just turned thirty. She joined EELV in 2015 and was elected co-president of the party in 2017. Described in our local paper as ‘lively, fiery’ and ‘a young woman in a hurry’, the fact that relatively little is known about her may explain why her once being a Girl Scout seems to have been give an undue amount of attention.
The outgoing mayor, Alain Claeys,who is 71, was bidding to win a third period of office, having already served 12 years. In all, the Socialists have been in power here for the last 43 years, so this is a major shift. One noticeable aspect of the pre-election campaigning was that the two losing parties (the Socialists and LREM – President Macron’s La République en Marche) seemed very keen to establish their own green credentials, as if sensing the way the general mood was shifting. Turnout was very low at 33.2%, even lower than the first round back in March, when it was 36.4%. Turnouts nationally were generally low.
It isn’t clear yet, at least to me, how profound or sweeping the changes will be as a result of this election. The new council will no doubt want to make some sort of immediate impact, but dealing with the ongoing coronavirus problem is likely to occupy them for a while to come. As in the UK, the council administrative staff will continue in their posts, so life for most of us should go on as normal. For the time being, at least.
Elsewhere in France, in Marseille the environmental group Le Printemps Marseillais came first but without an overall majority, while the Socialists retained Paris, Nantes, Lille, and Rennes. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National claimed Perpignan.
About the only success for LREM was prime minister Edouard Philippe’s win in Le Havre, (which I suppose is the equivalent of Boris Johnson being elected Mayor of Southampton while still prime minister). Under a law of 2014, members of either house of the French Parliament can no longer carry out these ‘dual mandate’ roles, so Monsieur Philippe has nominated a deputy to serve as mayor until such time as he chooses to take up the role. This might be sooner than he anticipates, as there are regular rumours of tension between him and President Macron – something both have denied.
Postcards from Poitiers 