A dozen hours of negotiations were necessary to reach an agreement between the three left-wing lists: EELV, PS and LFI-PCF. The ecologist Julien Bayou was ahead of Audrey Pulvar and Clémentine Autain in the first round with 12.95% of the vote.
Negotiations began as soon as the final results were known on Sunday around 2 a.m. A dozen hours later, an agreement was reached. “That’s it, we are united with Audrey Pulvar and Clémentine Autain for ecology and solidarity in Ile-de-France!”, Julien Bayou said on Twitter this early Monday afternoon. The agreement must be presented to Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) at the end of the afternoon by the three candidates during a joint trip.
The opportunity for Julien Bayou to present himself for the first time as a leader of the troops after winning, with 12.95% of the vote, a first round in the form of primary. He placed himself ahead of Audrey Pulvar (11.07%), supported by the PS, and Clémentine Autain (10.24%), candidate for LFI and the PCF.
Program agreement
The agreement was not necessarily straightforward. Clémentine Autain was clearly positioned for a merger of the lists behind the candidate from the left who would take the lead. Ms. Pulvar regretted that a single candidacy from the first round had not emerged. But as soon as the results were announced on Sunday evening, she spoke in favor of a union behind the environmentalist, Julien Bayou.
If the convergences are real between the programs of the three candidates, certain major points remained to be discussed. This is the case with Audrey Pulvar’s flagship proposal: total free public transport, carried out gradually. A proposal no “negotiable”, while Julien Bayou was opposed to it, believing that we could not lead “renovation and free”.
According to Céline Malaisé (PCF), present at the negotiations for Ms. Autain, the agreement provides for free public transport for those under 25, which Ms. Autain promised, without a timetable but with “the objective of trying to broaden social pricing as much as possible”.
Still in transport, the three candidates took a stand on the “refusal of opening up to competition”, according to the elected Communist. A reason for satisfaction for Ms. Autain who firmly defended this measure.
Another regional issue: the fight against the Triangle de Gonesse station project (Val-d’Oise). Julien Bayou and Clémentine Autain were opposed to it when Audrey Pulvar had stayed further back. According to Ms. Malaisé, the merger agreement provides for “preserve agricultural land” de Gonesse and Saclay (Essonne), another urbanization project contested by environmentalists.
Finally, while Julien Bayou wanted to transform Le Bourget into a “gigantic park”, the three candidates have also adopted a strategy to “long terme” from “reconversion of the aeronautical and automotive sectors” for the business airport, in order to “preserve jobs and think about the jobs of tomorrow”, said Ms. Malaisé.
A real chance to win the region?
The latest polls gave Valérie Pécresse a large winner in the second round, in the event of a triangular or quadrangular.
But the scores obtained by cumulating the three lists: 34.26% of the votes in the first round, allows them to hope to compete strongly with Ms. Pécresse who obtained 35.94% of the votes. On franceinfo, Mr. Bayou, estimated that“there is a huge chance” to beat the outgoing.
After the promulgation of the results on Sunday evening, the latter also castigated the “coalition of a radical left which includes the extreme left of Mr. Mélenchon” while seeking to garner the votes of the candidate RN Jordan Bardella (13.12%) and that of LREM, Laurent Saint-Martin (11.76%): “To abstain or disperse the votes, by voting RN, or even by voting LREM, is to elect this extreme left”, did she say.
By maintaining his candidacy, Laurent Saint-Martin prevents a transfer of the votes of his electorate to the camp of Valérie Pécresse. But the unknowns of the ballot are such that it is very difficult to know if there will be a surge in participation in the second round and if the voters will follow the instructions of the candidates they support.
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