in the home stretch, “the challenge is to mobilize”

« It was there. On the third floor, where the laundry is on the balcony.” At the foot of the building, Marie Toussaint points to the floor. It’s been almost twenty years since the recently re-elected MEP last passed through the entrance of this block where she grew up, in the Aubiers district. She came to lend a hand to Céline Papin, the candidate of the New Popular Front of the 1^re constituency of Gironde (Bordeaux North, Le Bouscat, Bruges), the former head of the list of ecologists in the European elections took the opportunity to make a small personal profession of faith.

Two sharp knocks on the old door: “Are your parents there?” » Then a silhouette emerges from the end of the corridor. “We’re going to vote for you… That’s okay, it’s normal. » The new tenants already seem to be on board with the left-wing coalition: “In this kind of neighborhood, if the RN passes, life will be harder. It’s going to be hassle and hassle,” says the MEP.

The call to friends

A few hours before the end of the first part of this express campaign, Céline Papin called on a small army of activists to tow in the Aubiers district. Nearly fifty ecologists and a visit from a neighbor: the very popular outgoing MP from 2^e constituency, Nicolas Thierry. “The challenge is to mobilize. It’s abstention. We are in a neighborhood where people vote very little. I ran the Aubiers polling station for a long time and that was already the case,” summarizes Céline Papin.

In this 1^re constituency with two faces, straddling bourgeois, bobo and working-class neighborhoods, the Left Front label is an asset for the ecologist. The possibility of playing on the LFI board, which seems to please during door-to-door exchanges here in Aubiers. The green face too, in the more central neighborhoods. “Yes, it clearly helps. That is also the goal of this union and this commitment.” In the European elections, this “union” weighed nearly 40%.

“Another election”

Simple “party agreements at the extremes”, Thomas Cazenave says rudely, in the humid heat of this Thursday. After Chartrons, here he is in Caudéran. The Minister Delegate for Public Accounts wants to embody “the pole of stability”. “In a political landscape that has changed a lot in two weeks and, after the shock, the incomprehension, even the anger, the voters understand that we represent moderation.” Three political blocs, “three different projects” including “two extremes” and “a stable benchmark”, says the elected official from Bordeaux, campaigning since the day after the dissolution. Like many executives of the majority, he could lose big on Sunday.

“Voting in the first round is choosing, voting in the second round is eliminating”

Cazenave did not parade his government colleagues. “We know what I think, where I stand politically, there are no surprises.” He knows that everything will come down to him: will he do better on his name on Sunday than Renaissance’s candidacy in the European elections? That’s the idea: Thomas Cazenave won in 2022 with 60% of the vote – and he led the left by 10 points in the first round – while Valérie Hayer only won 19.7% in the European elections. To which we can add the meager reserve of 10.8% of the Republicans, who are not running anyone on Sunday.

“Thomas has gained a lot of notoriety,” reframes a relative. “It’s another election, he is considered a local elected official, people know that he works for the city. » “It’s difficult to know which way the coin will fall,” tempers a local observer, curious to know the weight of the National Rally.

The weight of the extreme right

The far right (RN and Reconquête) gathered 23% of the votes in the European elections compared to 15% in the 2022 legislative elections. The two parties leave separately on Sunday, between Virginie Tournay (Reconquête), one of the leaders of the Vigilant Parents movement, a false nose from Éric Zemmour’s party in schools, and Bruno Paluteau (RN), already a candidate for the municipal elections in Bordeaux in 2020, for the legislative elections of 2022 (9%), former elected official of Bègles and regional councilor since 2014. All denounce the “radicalization” of the left or the results of the Macron years.

The candidates

Thomas Cazenave (Together, presidential majority), Céline Papin (New Popular Front), Bruno Paluteau (RN), Fanny Quandalle (Workers’ Struggle), Virginie Tournay (Reconquest) and Béatrice Pomarel (center).

We also discover Béatrice Pomarel, a young physiotherapist from Bordeaux who presents herself in the name of “civil society” for the centrist Alliance, “a credible alternative to the majority and the extremes”. She, who promises “a more serene daily life in a society where it is good to live together”, takes into account this old political axiom: “Vote in the first round is to choose, to vote in the second round is to eliminate. »