It is around 9 p.m. and suddenly, Jean-Charles Larsonneur’s face lights up. He needed to collect 12.5% of the registered votes, he gets 12.6%. For two hours he has been going around in circles in the large town hall lounge, oscillating between initial disillusionment and hope restored as he goes through the offices more favorable to his candidacy. It seems that the man who in 2022 had beaten his long-time rival, the Insoumis Pierre-Yves Cadalen by 118 small votes, is enjoying Hitchcock-style scenarios. It is 9 p.m. and suddenly, the man who two hours earlier was ranting about “the division in the center” which, according to him, had “done its work”, is filled with energy. “I will be the unifying candidate,” he asserts. “The one for the Brest voters who continue to support their independence. They have the right to express themselves by a vote that will be neither in favor of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, nor in favor of Marine Le Pen. I am this alternative.” And to state that he is now, after this evening, “the only candidate of the center.” His challenger Tristan Bréhier, invested by Renaissance, will give him a discharge shortly after by calling for people to transfer their votes to him.
Unimaginable withdrawal
Freed from this new mouse hole, here he is in the big field leading to the second round, Sunday July 7. Not for a moment did he think about withdrawing, “are you kidding or what”. Because in his eyes, “I cannot imagine that this city will be represented by a candidate who does not say a word about defense and who leads to ruin, nor by another who will martyr the most disadvantaged”. Beyond these first campaign arrows, he does not intend to “resign himself to any hate speech” because “the only real subject is the people and this beautiful city of Ponant”.
« Y’a match »
In a corner of the town hall, a few maternal tears escape. Around Jean-Charles Larsonneur, his family in the literal sense and his political family, where his friend Bayo is completely happy. “Me, I’ve been with Jean-Charles since the beginning.” He opposes it to “traitors and ambitious people who no longer spoke to us when they had power”. He, the child of Macronie “from 2016, among the first” stayed with him “because he talks to everyone”. Opinion shared in his Harteloire HQ, where some supporters breathe with relief. Louise, the Swiss woman who sticks posters on bikes, describes him as a “constructive optimist” who knows how to “fight when necessary”. To “appease against the facilities” as the outgoing MP promises? Answer next Sunday, “but there’s a match”.
