Sandrine Rousseau facing Sandrine Rousseau, strange method of a pro-rurality party to oppose EELV

In the legislative elections, the voters of the 9th district of Paris will have the choice between thirteen candidates … including two homonyms, two Sandrine Rousseau.

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The voters and electricities of the 9 e district of Paris will have the choice, in the legislative elections (June 12 and 19), between thirteen candidates in the first round, among which are two Sandrine Rousseau. One is the candidate of the new Ecological and Social People’s Popular Union (Nuts), pillar of Europe Ecologie-les Verts (EELV), the other is a novice in politics, childcare assistant living in Normandy, invested by the movement For rurality (LMR), formerly named hunting, fishing, nature and traditions (CPNT).

A coincidence? No. It is a parachuting orchestrated by LMR in order to counter the ecofeminist Sandrine Rousseau and more broadly, his party, EELV. This results in a certain confusion. To the publication of the list of 6,293 candidates for the legislative elections, many of our readers have joined us to inform us of an “error” in this Parisian constituency. On the day of the election, the ballots will however be relatively easy to distinguish: each will indicate the name of the candidate, from her deputy, as well as the logos of their political training (NUPES and EELV on the one hand; LMR and CPNT on the other).

Create confusion in voters

The case seems to have the pro-rurality party. “Sandrine Rousseau is the companion of a friendly friend in our movement, Sylvain Bertois. She is a member of the movement, but without political commitment until then. When I discovered her name, I offered to become a candidate, in telling me that it was going to talk a little. This is huge, “said Jérôme Juvigny, president LMR of Cantal, at the origin of this parachuting and now responsible for the communication of M me Rousseau.

Is the objective to create confusion among voters when slipping their bulletin in the ballot box? “We [with Eddie Puyjalon and Yannick Villardier, LMR officials] never thought of it as a source of confusion between the names that would make it possible to catch voices, he defends. It is rather a way to mark our ideological difference With punitive ecology or the opposition between men and women offered by M me rousseau “. The pro-rurality candidate, however, has not yet been made or planned to travel to Paris to campaign there. “We will assess the situation according to requests,” explains Mr. Juvigny.

“I see a strategy to silence”

The candidate Nupes, finalist of the primary of the Greens at the inauguration for the presidential election, first reacted on Twitter saying herself “tired”. Joined on the phone, she explains that she had no recourse against this parachute at this stage. “I see a strategy to be silent,” she reacts. “I assume being in favor of a radical ecology, in which hunters do not have their entries in all ministries. Let us have political debates on these subjects. There, we are far away, they are fascinating methods”, she judges, quoting “Putinian practices”. Russian power has repeatedly invested in homonymous candidates to destabilize opponents ( here told by the Parisian ).

In France, the National Front has already invested candidates with a name similar to that of a competitor. For example in 2004, during the cantonal elections, Christophe Martin was invested against the outgoing UMP Jacques Martin in Nogent-sur-Marne, and Hervé Leroy against the UMP Jacques Leroy in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés-Ouest. “Without this contempt for the intelligence of voters having had great effects”, according to the researcher specialist in the far right Nicolas Lebourg.

To the next legislative elections, the rurality movement will also represent Mr. Jacques Lemoine, responsible for the federations of fishing in Ile-de-France, in the 5 e

é> district of Seine-et -Marl. He is a candidate against Franck Riester, candidate minister, and especially Patricia Lemoine, alternate and outgoing deputy, who was one of the parliamentarians who asked the government, in 2020, to end the “traditional” hunts. “It was his territory”, justifies Jérôme Juvigny, de LMR, “and then the opportunity makes the thief”.

/Media reports.