EShe put down her crate of apricots to better wave her hands in front of the candidate. “But what are we going to do, Mrs. Batho? Huh? What are we going to do? can to do? » It is ten o’clock. The Sauzé-Vaussais market comes to life a little when the current MP enters, dressed in royal blue. All that remains of the old market halls is the clock tower, which marks the time for 1,600 souls, anxious this Thursday morning in front of the handful of stands.
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On June 9, Jordan Bardella won 42.7% of the votes here, crushing all his competitors. An earthquake experienced by this entire rural constituency, the second of Deux-Sèvres, acquired by the left since 1988 and the parachuting onto these lands of Ségolène Royal. The iconoclast ex-presidential candidate locked his stronghold, before bequeathing it to Delphine Batho, in 2007. That year, the National Front had obtained only 2.83% of the votes… In 2024, his score in the constituency reached 32.2%. Eleven times more!
READ ALSO When Ségolène Royal bows to a virtual strangerThe mayor of Sauzé-Vaussais, Nicolas Ragot, is still stunned. “There is an element of contestation and a rejection of the methods of the majority, which has increased the number of recourses to article 49.3,” he thinks, “the effect of continuous news channels, which create a climate… But a vote of adhesion, too.” Could the constituency change? “It’s not sure… But the question has arisen for the first time in decades. »
The Mélenchon “ball”
Delphine Batho burst onto the field two weeks ago to save her seat. And for the first time, she is struggling. “We don’t really know which side she is on. She has her own party, but she supports the program of the New Popular Front. She tries to be on good terms with the armed forces, with the firefighters, but is she going to vote for a law to disarm the police? It doesn’t make sense, all that,” grumbles Frédéric Wattebled, local representative of the Horizons party. Aware of the handicap represented by the excesses of the Insoumis, Delphine Batho has erased from her posters and campaign documents any reference to the New Popular Front, insisting that she is “free” and has nothing to do with them.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, everyone hates him. I refuse to be in the pictures with them. The coalition is based on the PS, that’s very clear.Delphine Batho, environmentalist deputy
At the market, Francine attacks. She sees clearly, when she goes to town, that “insecurity is increasing. Will my granddaughter be stabbed when she is 15?” Delphine Batho understands, she says. “We must support our police officers, free them from paperwork.” “If you are elected, will there be new wind turbines?” “No,” promises the candidate. “I had a saturation threshold voted into law. I am against any new wind power project in Mellois,” which is home to her parliamentary office.
“But what are you doing in this alliance with the Insoumis?” asks Jean-Joël Couturier, a local political figure. “It’s scandalous! This is the political group that shames democracy, shames France. Olivier Faure has sold the soul of the PS!” Then Delphine Batho defends herself, and fires: “Jean-Luc Mélenchon, everyone hates him. I refuse to be in the pictures with them. The coalition is made on the basis of the PS, that’s very clear.” The retiree chokes: “Are you kidding? With 230 LFI constituencies, and 170 for the PS?” Then, in a serious tone: “I don’t think we cure one evil with another evil.” The candidate, feeling uneasy, tries to explain: “I respect article 27 of the Constitution. Any imperative mandate is null and void. “The deputies are not at the service of a party, they are at the service of the people who elected them.”
At the Chef-Boutonne market, a few kilometers away, Delphine Batho counters the questions of about twenty anxious faces, in national emergency mode. “Is a major European power, the only one with nuclear weapons, going to become Putin’s friend overnight?” Her hands are shaking. Bardella “advocates retirement at 66, now.” And besides, “the RN wants to privatize France Bleu Poitou and France 3 Poitou-Charentes, to take control of minds,” she warns.
Jean-Louis Robert, the head of the cycling club, promises him his vote. “I trust her. I know her well, and she is a woman who has never compromised on values. We should not have had this president… Emmanuel Macron is the man of discord. He unleashes savagery.” Denis still hesitates: “I like her, she has real national weight and good ideas, she is not dogmatic. But there are too many people behind her. I might vote blank in the first round…”
The specter of violence in Sainte-Soline
Behind the scenes, some of the department’s elected officials are tough on the MP, whose support has crumbled, especially since the violent demonstrations in Sainte-Soline. In the small town of Melle, where Delphine Batho has her office, people demand anonymity before speaking out: the town’s mayor, a radical environmentalist close to the MP, opened his arms wide to anti-basin activists and former ZADists from Notre-Dame-des-Landes, who took over the Boulevard café, opposite the town hall. The town served as a rear base for peace activists, but also for hundreds of black blocs who confronted the police in March 2023, leaving farmers and residents traumatized. “We suffered police roadblocks and helicopter overflights for days, without anyone being consulted,” murmurs a shopkeeper.
READ ALSO Michaël Delafosse: “Chirac, come back, they’ve gone mad!” With the socialist opposition of the commune, the rupture is complete. “You have created chaos in our quiet little town. Your job is to ensure calm and safety, not to create disorder and trouble! » PS Claude Lacotte was indignant in the municipal council. Without result: more than 10,000 activists are expected in three weeks, between July 16 and 21. Intelligence services anticipate the arrival of “at least 1,000 ultraviolent individuals from all over Europe”, attracted by cameras from around the world who will be present on site, one week before the Olympics. The mayor of Melle Sylvain Griffault made ten hectares of land and municipal buildings available to demonstrators to organize a “Water Village.” »
In the surrounding communes, tensions are palpable between pro and anti-basin supporters. And we remember that Delphine Batho applauded with both hands the construction of the water reservoirs in 2018, welcoming the memorandum of understanding signed by all parties, before “turning her jacket” two years later, when she approached EELV, which was fiercely against… “If she didn’t come to the demonstrations, Delphine Batho didn’t condemn the vandals either,” recalls her LR competitor Émilie Baudrez.
“Macronist” Way of the Cross and RN non-campaign
The “Macronist” candidate, who hopes to make it to the second round, is using it as a campaign argument. But he too is struggling… “Macron is a drag, and I only started my campaign ten days ago,” explains Frédéric Bizard. A native of the department, the Parisian economics professor was sent there on the quota of MoDem candidates negotiated by François Bayrou. Nobody knows him, so he is struggling, and flies from town to town distributing his leaflets.
The immense constituency has 188 municipalities, impossible in two weeks to visit them all. When he holds an interlocutor, he pounds. “Delphine Batho’s political offer is misleading, and it has divided the constituency. I am the only one to propose a reasonable alternative, facing a radical environmentalist who advocates degrowth. How do you want to finance the ecological transition, a social and health system, with degrowth? How can we be green and against water retention? How to position yourself as a rampart of the Republic with Jean-Luc Mélenchon? »
READ ALSO “Economically, we have the choice between a limited bloc, an absurd bloc and a delusional bloc” Delphine Batho, who knows the risky period, did not wish to answer the questions of the Point on its positioning. No more than the candidate of the National Rally, a 31-year-old medical secretary, whose name (Mélody Garault) or face no one seems to have remembered: the heads of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella appear on her campaign posters. “The less she says, the better,” confides one of her close friends. The RN is the only formation to have skipped a meeting with the farmers. To the local press that she meets during her rare towing operations, Mélody Garault, who claims to “work and have very little time”, repeats the same element of the program, promising to fight against medical deserts by exempting taxes retired doctors who would come to work in the sector.
In Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, the scene of the first coup by anti-basin activists in 2021, Michaël will nevertheless vote for her – even though he has never seen her and does not know her name. “Anyway, we only see Delphine Batho at election time, and security is fundamental. I have gotten to the point where I have to carry a knife in my van,” says the construction worker. Chantal, in front of the town hall, rolls her eyes. “It’s the anxiety-inducing news that is constantly being broadcast on television that decides the election. Here, we only have chicken thefts,” she says, convinced that Delphine Batho will be re-elected. “She’s a political animal, she’s intelligent and gifted. Delphine is going to devour this little lady from the RN.”
