When he saw a dozen municipal and state police running towards him, “as in Swat“Jordan, 27, first turned around to see if anything was going on…”I said to myself – hey, is there an insurgent in the town hall?“When the latter surrounded him, while he quietly watched the election results on the screen installed in the hall of the town hall of Valenciennes, the young man did not really understand what was happening. Handcuffed and driven into a police car, under the dumbfounded gaze of those present, he suffered verbal pressure from the police who kept asking him this question: “Where did you put the envelope?“. Stunned, Jordan does not understand. What envelope? (Once the vote is closed, the ballots are divided into groups of 100 and placed in envelopes, to then be counted). What are they talking about ? He feels like the main character in a bad crime drama script. He replies as calmly as possible that he didn’t steal anything. And tells his election day to the police, while others search his bag.
The police apologize
On Sunday morning, he went to the polling station located in the Mathieu de Quinvigny kindergarten, between the Museum of Fine Arts and the Square Froissart, with the intention of working as an assessor. An administrative concern (the documents were not transferred in time) prevented Jordan from doing so. So he simply voted before going home. In the evening, the Valenciennes came again to the polling station to attend the counting from 7 p.m., in the presence of around twenty people. Having never practiced the exercise, he courteously declined the offer to participate in the counting, and positioned himself as a simple observer, not hesitating to ask a few questions about the progress of the operation. Around 7:45 p.m., Jordan joined the LFI activists, of which he was a part, to attend the announcement of the results in the hall of the town hall of Valenciennes. Jean-Luc Mélenchon finished in third place. It’s the cold shower. Some of the activists blame the blow and go out for some fresh air. Jordan remains in the hall to follow the evolution of the results. The rest, we know.
A “guilty head”?
The activist had the feeling of being the ideal culprit. Without presumption of innocence. He is then taken to the police station, where he will remain for 30 minutes before the police receive a radio alert telling them that the famous envelope has finally been found, “in a crate“… We don’t know any more. Relief. The police – and even the superintendent – apologize and release the young man. Was he the victim of a crime of facies? Young, unknown in this polling station run by regulars, was he designated as the ideal culprit and considered suspicious by those present? “At no time did I feel like I was being spied on.“However, the police confronted him with a photo of him, taken in the polling station, without his knowledge. We see him standing, from the front, watching the count. “That really shocked me.” Why did someone present at the polling station take a photo of Jordan? The latter wonders. “The polling station was not large and uncluttered for the occasion. I don’t know how they could lose an envelope for 45 minutes...”
“Total disregard”
After this unfortunate misadventure, Jordan decides to return to town hall. There he meets Luce Troadec, leader of the Insoumis in Valenciennes, and Arnaud L’herminé, the president of the polling station in rue de Quinvigny. The sexagenarian, chartered accountant by profession, is none other than the 3e deputy mayor of Valenciennes, in charge of finance. Jordan goes to meet him and ask him for an explanation. “I only received contempt from this gentleman, a total class contempt, while it is he who is responsible for the loss of this envelope, as president of the polling station. He dumped his responsibility on me. He barely apologized. For him, it’s not serious, these are things that happen. I felt that he bothered talking to me, he had other things to do. He replied that I was suspect because the same morning, I had come without my summons to be an assessor.” Jordan, who does not want to stop there and who wants to know concretely what happened that day, seized the prosecutor for defamatory accusation. LFI has done the same. Indignant by this significant episode, the young man did not, however, lose the desire to militate under the banners of France Insoumise, in particular for the next round: the legislative elections in June.
–
