IHe returns to combat. Defeated in the legislative elections in 2017 and 2022, the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, Vincent Jeanbrun, is again a candidate in the 7e Val-de-Marne constituency. Ready to face the Insoumise Rachel Keke, outgoing MP, in this territory which placed Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party in the lead in the European elections, closely followed by the National Rally.
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It won’t be easy. The former spokesperson for the Republicans, portrayed by Valérie Pécresse in “mayor courage”, a good face revealed to the French during the riots last summer after the attack on his pavilion by a flaming ram car, believes in his chances. Its slogan: “Together for the Republic!” »A reference to the banner displayed during the large gathering of the Association of Mayors of France, on July 3, 2023, after the riots and the attack on his home. The presidential coalition has also adopted the same name.
“Macron took the idea from me! » he quips, this Saturday June 15. Roseraie Park, on the occasion of the municipal festival, the mayor strolls, blue jacket and white sneakers, among the residents and their children who are enjoying the inflatable castle, the archery and face painting stands. The sound system spits out the song “Happy”, by Pharrell Williams, mingling with the cries of the kids treading on the cut grass. Here, in his city that he wrested from the left in 2014, Vincent Jeanbrun is on conquered ground.
“He is attentive and combative, despite what he has experienced, praises Kadra, a resident. He is beyond the left and the right. »“I would like to keep him as mayor!” dit Samia. He did a lot for the city and security. That’s going to be his problem for the legislative elections! Some will hesitate to vote for him! » A ban on the accumulation of mandates requires that he would in fact be obliged to leave his chair as mayor in the event of victory.
Handshakes, kisses and selfies
But, in this campaign, he is playing the local elected official card. Handshakes, kisses, selfies and discussions on bindweed problems, security, the political situation six days after the dissolution of the Assembly by Emmanuel Macron and the explosion of LR, his party. “So, are you well, Mr. Mayor?” » we ask him. “Better than the country”he replies, wearily.
“I am this child from HLM to whom the Republic gave everything”Vincent Jeanbrun
Vincent Jeanbrun announced the break with Éric Ciotti, in favor of an alliance with the National Rally. A shame for this Gaullist attached to the dike separating the Republican right from the extreme right. As such, LR’s tweet with xenophobic overtones on the expulsion of Algerians ten days before the Europeans shocked him, seeing there “the premise of drift”. “Eric Ciotti signed the Munich Agreement! » he scratches, worried about the rise of extremes, which he sends back to back. Faced with his enemies, “the extreme right which sorts citizens according to their French blood and the extreme left which essentializes”Vincent Jeanbrun wishes to embody “the camp of the Republic”.
“I am this child from HLM to whom the Republic gave everything”, he narrates, unfolding the political storytelling of a childhood spent at the bottom of the towers, jogging in sneakers, among the wrecks lying around in the parking lot. A time when the promises of social elevation still had meaning before disappearing in favor of ” what’s the point ? » ; a time when, he says, spinning the metaphor, “the social elevator didn’t work too much, but we could still take the stairs”.
Rachel Keke encouraged the riots. She is not in republican universalismVincent Jeanbrun
The compass of this son of a stay-at-home mother and a delivery driver father is “the Republic, liberty, equality, fraternity and secularism”. “Secularism is a point of divergence with the extreme left, he adds. In our constituency, Rachel Keke plays a lot with communitarianism. Initially, she seduced with her beautiful story, that of a cleaning lady who rises to the rank of deputy. She was then permanently aggressive, she encouraged riots. She is not in republican universalism. » The presidential camp having not put a candidate in front of him and assuring him of their support from the first round, he hopes to rally widely. “Renaissance did not repeat the mistakes of 2022. They considered that faced with the threat of the far left and Rachel Keke, only Vincent Jeanbrun could win”confides a member of his cabinet.
Defense of the living environment
No mention of LR on its poster or press releases. The LR label, a burden for this campaign? “I am not going to ask to vote LR in my constituency, he assumes. Faced with LFI and the RN, it would be a real plus if all the forces could converge. But my logic is not “at the same time”. » Vincent Jeanbrun harshly judges this Macronian mantra, which has resulted, according to him, in the devitalization of government parties and the rise of the extremes, placed as the only forces of change. And deplores the weakness of power over the sovereign, when, after the riots, the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, decides to distribute flyers to remind parents of their duties. “A strong measure”, he boasted at the time. Like a gaping gap.
“I was one of those who was not necessarily against the idea of working with Renaissance, he adds over a café crème. I am from the right and, in my city, I bring together people from MoDem and former socialists. The rally cannot be around a few poachings, but around values. It is a project coalition for which we must sit around the table. » Like an echo of the “federation of projects” that Emmanuel Macron is calling for.
The councilor wants to take his part in the reconstruction of a right of government, beyond LR, transformed into a dead star, hit by the political recomposition. He outlines a few priorities – the republican order, equal opportunities, work and health – and tries to give life to an ideological corpus, to a method. “We need to address these single mothers who are struggling to make ends meet, who want more social justice and who may vote for the far left. And talk to those who feel insecure and who vote for the far right”he explains.
But how can we rebuild a bond of trust when the right has been so disappointing at the Élysée, between the elimination of 10,000 police posts and the burial of the « non » in the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution? Ensuring that speech in politics is no longer a dead language, beyond its rhetoric on “common peasant sense”the image of a sepia-colored France and its lamentations over these “young people watching idiots on the Internet”? What about ecology, a theme which seems neglected by the right? “We must go beyond the observation stage. We must make a speech on the defense of the living environment, the fight against air pollution”recognizes Vincent Jeanbrun.
At the end of June, a year after the fever of summer 2023, he was to put into the public debate a series of proposals on the neighborhoods and the Republic. The early legislative elections disrupted the plans. A job that led him to travel across France, meeting elected officials of all labels. He drew some proposals from this: facilitating evictions from social housing for problem families, more training for teachers, emphasis placed on fundamentals at school… His leitmotif: the fight against “house arrest”. Macron in the text, 2017 version.
