AFP
Attal cuts short a trip to the Rhône amid local Renaissance-LR dispute
Gabriel Attal cut short a campaign trip to the Rhône on Friday, where he did not visit a school set on fire by minors as planned, after a dispute between the outgoing Renaissance MP and the LR mayor of the city supported by a candidate close to Laurent Wauquiez. The Prime Minister, campaign leader of the outgoing majority in the legislative elections, is making his last trip to the Rhône before the first round on Sunday, in support of four candidates. He was due to visit the Marcel Pagnol primary school in Meyzieu, where two classrooms burned on June 19. Images showing teenagers ransacking the premises were posted online on social media. Two minors, aged 13, were arrested and will be tried for “willful damage by dangerous means”. Gabriel Attal ultimately gave up on this visit. “The conditions were not right to welcome us,” explained his entourage. The Les Républicains mayor of the city, Christophe Quiniou, did not open the doors, deploring having been informed at the last minute of Mr. Attal’s visit, according to a video published by the entourage of the outgoing deputy and Renaissance candidate for this 13th constituency, Sarah Tanzilli, who, for her part, claims to have called him at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. The mayor “preferred to defend his candidate and his party rather than defend his town,” Ms. Tanzilli lamented to the press. “Informed the day before of a trip, warned of the time 20 minutes before. I arrive running, And in the end he doesn’t come anymore. Campaign disorganization or disinterest in the Marcel Pagnol school, Gabriel Attal?” then wrote on X the mayor of Meyzieu. The LR candidate Philippe Meunier, opponent of Mrs Tanzilli, close to the LR president of the region Laurent Wauquiez, castigated on X a Prime Minister “who is campaigning by exploiting the burning of a school” and expressed his “disgust”. During a press briefing, Gabriel Attal called on the voters of the “social-democratic left” and the “Gaullist republican right” to vote for his camp, castigating the National Rally, given favorite, whose prospect of victory “unleashes certain impulses of hatred somewhere”. are-mlv/sac/sla
