While the far right is at the gates of power, the left continues to organize to counter the RN candidates on the verge of winning, by withdrawing its candidates who came 3rd. But not only in these cases. The outgoing MP for the 5th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis Raquel Garrido said she was ready on Monday to withdraw, citing “a sense of responsibility”. The candidate, a member of LFI, presented herself without being endorsed by the party. She came 3rd in the first round on Sunday, behind the candidate preferred by the rebels and the UDI candidate.
“I have the possibility of maintaining my position, because we achieved a very important score, more than 8,600 votes, which is more than what I achieved in 2022. That is approximately 42% of the votes of the vague Popular Front”, initially reacted Raquel Garrido, welcoming a “strong non-Melenchonist vote at home”. However, “logic would dictate that the second on the left should withdraw, I am ready,” declared on TF 1 the outgoing MP for the 5th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis (Drancy, Bobigny, Le Bourget), who has until Tuesday 6 p.m. to make a final decision.
At the polls on Sunday evening, the candidate who was nevertheless running under the banner of the New Popular Front obtained 23.65% of the votes, almost 10 points behind her competitor officially nominated by LFI, Aly Diouara, who came in first with 33.11% of the votes. UDI candidate Aude Lagarde, mayor of Drancy and wife of the former local baron Jean-Christophe Lagarde, took second place with 24.56% of the votes.
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“Let us all apply the same principle”
Without wanting to “enter into bargaining”, Raquel Garrido nevertheless called on the candidates officially invested by LFI and who arrived behind those ousted from the party to undertake the same approach as her. “I really ask that everyone have a sense of responsibility”, she continued. “That we all apply the same principle.”
She thus said she expected “exactly the same withdrawal” from three rebellious candidates who arrived behind three dissident rebellious candidates, not reinvested by LFI following criticism of the leadership: Sabrina Ali Benali (7th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis), competitor of Alexis Corbière, Allan Popelard (5th of Bouches-du-Rhône, three-way in the second round), facing Hendrik Davi, and Céline Verzeletti (15th of Paris), facing Danielle Simonnet.
The outgoing MP also underlined that these three other dissidents had managed to capture “the majority of the wave” of New Popular Front voters. “All the purged comrades made a demonstration in their constituency (….) that there is in urban areas an aspiration to make the post-Mélenchon, something other than what he has proposed for two years”, a- she insisted.
Participation jumped in Raquel Garrido’s constituency to 57.11%, compared to 36.5% in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections. Nearly 14,000 additional voters came to vote. In 2022, the rebels put an end to twenty years of deputation of Jean-Christophe Lagarde, former president of the UDI, ineligible until 2024 due to a conviction.
The rebellious MP Clémentine Autain, also very critical of the movement’s leadership, said on the social network X that she was “dismayed to have to take time to ask the LFI leadership not to maintain its candidacies” in the face of three of her “purged” comrades. “I understand that Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the LFI leadership are bitter about their failure but I call for responsibility,” she added, calling for an “end” to the “fratricidal wars”. As for her, she was re-elected on Sunday in the first round in her Paris constituency.
