Without the investiture of his party, the outgoing deputy Alexis Corbière still came out on top in the 7the constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis with 40.19% ahead of the officially invested candidate, by LFI Sabrina Ali-benali (36.39%). Other former close associates of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Raquel Garrido and Danielle Simonnet, experienced the same situation, respectively in the 5e constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis and in the 15th of Paris. Unlike Danielle Simonnet and Alexis Corbière, Raquel Garrido came in third place with 23.65% of the vote, behind the candidate invested by LFI Aly Diouara (33.1%) and the mayor of Drancy Aude Lagarde (24.56%). She announced her intention to withdraw. “I will no longer be a member of parliament next year,” she confirmed this Monday, during a press conference.
“It is a useless, absurd, indecent purge” denounced by the outgoing deputies. “No activist was consulted about this. I know who decided it, namely the one who is the main authority of France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon,” declared Alexis Corbière.
He later denounced Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s methods. “He posted a video saying that I had presented a false ballot. We disturbed people. We were prosecuted in court (to prevent them from using the New Popular Front logo, editor’s note). For those of us who are convinced that the urgent thing is to block the far right, all of this seems out of place.” […] “We have the impression that the emergency is not to elect people but to beat some of them. Unfortunately, in the first round we are in the lead,” he added, looking at Danielle Simonnet.
Raquel Garrido is not as fortunate. The former MP denounced the practices of LFI which “does not aspire to be a democratic organization […] I knew that by raising these debates, I was exposing myself to an authoritarian response from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. […] Why? Because he can.”
Raquel Garrido also stated that “there was a left that agrees with the program of France Insoumise but does not agree with the methods of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The request that was made to us by these ballot papers is to move on to the post-Jean-Luc Mélenchon era,” she said, specifying that she had gathered 42% of the votes of the Popular Front in her constituency.
Finally, the former MP highlighted the insults she receives on social networks, coming, according to her, from “troll farms administered from the headquarters of France Insoumise”.
