In a constituency marked by a strong lepenist vote in the presidential election, the outgoing deputy campaigned far from the labels.
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Soon noon, a small set of buildings from the periphery of Abbeville (Somme). We lunch early Saturday in Mecloncourt. Near the fields, the old sweets has given way to a shopping center. The sound system launched thoroughly to announce the arrival of the local deputy, François Ruffin (La France Insoumise, LFI), leaves impassive the walkers of Pitbulls. A few weeks ago, in the first round of the presidential election, in the school opposite, his supporters who stripped in this office counted 359 votes for Marine Le Pen (46 %), 163 for Emmanuel Macron (21 %) , 134 for Jean-Luc Mélenchon (17 %). In the second round, the candidate of the National Rally (RN) collected 65 % of the votes cast. A summary of this France of the boroughs mentioned by the deputy the day after the first round. In an interview with Liberation , it already regretted that it” did not appear [Isse] not as a priority ” LFI and called not to “abandon it to the national rally”.
What to explain the apathy of the neighborhood, which quietly continues to sweep away his doorstep without much curiosity for the noisy strip of standing Picardy, the micropart of François Ruffin. Difficult, however, to remain indifferent to his festive panoply. “We tried everything, the karaoke, the pétanque tournament, the darts, and tonight running,” said the deputy for the Somme to his supporters. “Soon the asylum”, slips a teasing activist.
In this corner of Picardy, the new national label of the unitary left does not count much. Difficult to distinguish an effect from the agreement of the new popular, ecological and social union (clouds) between Parisian staffs. “Here, the clip is not a campaign argument,” said the candidate for a second term. In 2017, he had already managed to bring back behind him the “rebellious”, the Communists and the Ecologists. As for the figure of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, locally, “his electoral base is too weak,” said the documentaryist deputy. The LFI leader is nowhere on the distributed leaflets.
The familiar figure in the area, more than Jean-Luc Mélenchon or even François Ruffin, it’s Marine Le Pen. “You look like Marilyn Monroe”, thus ventures a resident of the neighborhood, speaking to a blonde lady in discussion with the deputy.
“I was told, sometimes I am also told Marine Le Pen, it’s less flattering.
– Oh well, she is beautiful anyway … “
Few are the inhabitants of the square to come and taste the barbecue. François Ruffin motivates his troops: “The principle of the countryside is joy, joy, joy!” Around him, a condensed of the political-cinematographic universe that he built over his films. His deputy, Hayat Matboua, accompanying students with disabilities, appears in the last one, standing the women (made with Gilles Perret, 2021). Home aid are there too, sometimes from afar, students who recognize him to embody a “rural left”, “rebellious”, communists and even “fakirs”, from his newspaper. In front of them, the outgoing deputy almost claims him as a pride: unlike the macronist metropolises but also melenchonized, “here, we do not have the wind in the back but the headwind”.
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