EShe appears dressed in white on the slab of Bobigny town hall, colorful leaflets in hand, her steps hurried. Raquel Garrido gives a thin smile in front of the journalists before setting foot on the asphalt of this large concrete city. This Tuesday, the outgoing member of La France insoumise (LFI) goes hunting for voters in the 5e constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny, Drancy, La Courneuve). Which, in this very left-wing land, is not lacking.
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Except there is a wolf. In this case, the candidate Aly Diouara. This resident of La Courneuve is the candidate nominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France insoumise, in place of Raquel Garrido, historic traveling companion of the leader maximo, yet elected deputy in 2022 with 53%. Garrido is one of the “purged” deputies, like his companion Alexis Corbière, deputy for Montreuil and Bobigny. Neither he nor she obeyed the party’s instructions to withdraw. Also, they embody a strange form of dissidence, close to the ideas of the supreme master, but guilty of having too openly criticized the official line.
In Bobigny, Raquel Garrido introduces herself, makes contact, shakes hands, chats in a small supermarket. To each one, she slips: “You must have followed what happened on the left… Don’t get the list wrong, I embody the New Popular Front! » Because confusion reigns for the voter, as the leaflets of the two left-wing candidates are so similar: same model, same rallying name. The only nuances: Aly Diouara chose to highlight Mélenchon’s face, unlike Raquel Garrido who, for her part, had to erase the logo of La France insoumise.
The city bazaar
At the exit of a primary school, not far from the town hall, or even under a tunnel, the pro-Garrido posters are absent or torn down. Those of Aly Diouara, on the contrary, are legion. Abdel Sadi, Raquel Garrido’s running mate, shares his impression of a strange campaign by warmly greeting his fellow citizens. “I support Raquel, the outgoing MP, she is present, active… and it doesn’t work like that,” repeats the mayor of Bobigny in reference to the rebellious investiture methods. Without speaking frankly about the fratricidal war. “What if I called Mélenchon? Ask him, he will write you a novel! » Raquel Garrido annoys when questioned.
At the corner of an avenue, she stops in front of a trinket shop. “The Bazar de la ville”, in Bobigny, “was the former office of Jean-Christophe Lagarde. He still owns it,” says Raquel Garrido, barely hiding the rejection she feels for the other competing list, that of the right led by Aude Lagarde, current mayor of Drancy and wife of the former UDI deputy of the area, who was sentenced to two years of ineligibility after being convicted of fictitious employment. Jean-Christophe Lagarde had provided his mother-in-law with a salary as a parliamentary assistant without the work done being established.
The next day, in Drancy, on lands more “Lagardienne” than in Bobigny, a strange ballet is played out in front of the market. A meter away, the Aly-leaning LFIs rub shoulders with the Raquel-leaning LFIs on a stretch of sidewalk. Lagarde’s activists follow them closely. Each tries to convince the hesitant passerby without denigrating the other, while denigrating him. The pro-Aly: “Raquel is a social democrat, if she wants to implement this policy, fine, but let her go alone”; “Raquel is the queen of lies, we never see her, she talks to the inhabitants of Drancy about the Sixth Republic, here no one cares”, we can hear, when those opposite, the pro-Raquels, tackle Diouara: “he doesn’t know anyone”, “he’s too radical”, judges this activist again, who is happy not to distribute a leaflet with Mélenchon’s face, a potential deterrent.
Alongside that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, another shadow hangs over this local campaign: that of Jean-Christophe Lagarde. On Raquel Garrido’s leaflet, in the mouths of elected officials, activists, and even on an electoral poster, that of his wife, Aude: his name appears everywhere. He even comes back insistently around the candidacy of Aly Diouara. Indeed, the LFI candidate knows him well, because he has worked as an association manager at Drancy town hall for around fifteen years. On his Facebook account, he also shows himself to be very close to followers of Jean-Christophe Lagarde, such as Idriss Niang, president of the “citizen” association, Agir ensemble, a flagship association promoted by the town hall of Drancy, or even Mamadou Niakaté, former -chief of staff of UDI mayor Stéphane de Paoli, whose football club FC93 was noted for having received 10,000 euros in parliamentary appropriations from Jean-Christophe Lagarde in 2014.
Contacted by PointAly Diouara brushes aside these “rumors” and “fantasies” related to his “profession”. “It’s completely scandalous,” he says indignantly. “I’m a local civil service executive, I work for the public service. We don’t say that teachers are Macronists!” Aly Diouara emerged locally by getting involved for the residents of the city of 4,000, in La Courneuve, through his association Asad, particularly on the issue of housing. “Aly Diouara is one of these mercenaries of politics in Seine-Saint-Denis”, tackles a connoisseur of local politics, who is worried about a possible “cynical renaissance of the UDI networks just to eliminate an opponent of Mélenchon”.
The “Whites” and the “Zionists”
Aly Diouara also embodies a tough rebellious line. When his candidacy was announced, a tweet was unearthed where he described the socialist Raphaël Glucksmann as a “Zionist”. He also speaks several times of “Whites” in an identity reading grid that has become commonplace at LFI. “Hey white people, say… we’re not bothering you too much in your remake of the Berlin conference? » he posts in 2022 in the caption of a photo with socialist executives Olivier Faure, Clémentine Autain and Alexis Corbière. A reference to the meeting of Western countries in 1884-1885 on the partition and division of Africa.
Questioned about these comments, Aly Diouara refers us to a press release in which he does not respond. Glucksmann, “Zionist”? “It’s a political statement, but not anti-Semitic,” he responds in the YouTube show At office to which he also sent us. On the ground, no one talks to me about that. I am against the hierarchy of racism. I express myself in a sarcastic, virulent manner to shake up the establishment. These accusations are shameless and defamatory. »
On the phone, then in a conspiratorial tweet, Aly Diouara claims that our article is “ordered” by his political “adversaries” – bad luck, they are not really known to be friends of the Point… To support its nominated candidate in Seine-Saint-Denis, LFI brought out the heavy artillery by inviting Rima Hassan, Assa Traoré and Sébastien Delogu to tow in person alongside Aly Diouara. “They think they are going to rouse the popular masses with Rima Hassan, but when she went to the Abreuvoir market, there were no more people than usual,” smiles an observer from the local politics. Above all, there is a loss of strength, since LFI could put its activists in constituencies where the fight is tough with the extreme right. »
Each side is confident of coming out on top this Sunday. None intend to withdraw in the event of a triangular. “It is an irresponsible mistake to maintain your candidacy since we have not had an investiture,” believes Aly Diouara. I don’t think there will be any triangular. If so, they will take responsibility. » On her leaflet, UDI candidate Aude Lagarde laughs: “They fight among themselves, we will fight for you! »
Purged, but not (yet) defeated. For the legislative elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon chose to dismiss several elected officials from La France Insoumise accused of disloyalty. They nevertheless maintain their candidacies in Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris and Marseille. LFI presents a candidate each time in opposition. What do these frictions reveal? Point tells you about their campaign in four episodes seen from the ground.
Episode 1 : Sound system outage and perilous towing: in Montreuil, at Alexis Corbière, the left is at loggerheads
Episode 2: “Vote for me, look what Mélenchon did to me”: ousted from LFI, Danielle Simonnet doesn’t give up
Episode 4 coming Friday.
