centrist parties unite and call for “a broad coalition”

Having left in dispersed order in 2020, the centrist parties in Lyon announced in the middle of last week their coming together for the municipal and metropolitan elections of 2026. Renaissance (the presidential party), Horizons, the MoDem and the Radical Party have reached an agreement to try to form “a broad coalition facing the teams of the New Popular Front”. “A victory in Lyon and in the metropolis cannot be achieved without this coalition”added the four political parties in a joint statement calling for “other citizen and republican forces” to join this gathering.

Forget 2020

The history of the presidential party in Lyon is closely linked to that of Gérard Collomb. Qualified as the first of the Macronists, he then included most of the tenors of the local PS in the LREM adventure of 2017. But his majority – and the presidential party with it – was torn apart during the 2020 municipal elections between the former mayor and those he had appointed at the head of the city and the metropolis, Georges Képénékian and David Kimelfeld at the time of his departure to Beauvau, in 2017. The second round alliance, negotiated by Gérard Collomb and Laurent Wauquiez, had completed this split, LREM even withdrawing his nomination, and had benefited the coalition of the left and ecologists, which had seized both communities.

An episode that the central Lyon block now hopes to leave behind. “We are seeking to bring together as large a group as possible, because it is the DNA of Lyon. This is what Gérard Collomb built, the majority of whom ranged from communists to Sarkozysts. We call on the sincere left, which does not recognize itself in the agreements with La France insoumise, to come together, but also the reasonable right which has no ambiguity with the RN.details Sarah Peillon, president of the Renaissance party in the Rhône.

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Towards an agreement with LR?

It remains to be seen whether an agreement with LR is possible after the failure of 2020. “There are no discussions but we talk to each other in our positions as elected officialscontinues Sarah Peillon. The question is to work and come together as soon as possible on both the right and the left. We want to avoid this 1+1 which does not make two like that of 2020”. In Lyon, and to a lesser extent in the mainland, the results of the last national elections have reinforced the local roots of the environmentalist majority. This foundation, unless divided, will be difficult for the opposition to break without a coalition of all its components.