In her last days in office, Claire O’Petit prepares to leave the Palais-Bourbon with suitcases full of bitterness and resentment. The septuagenarian, elected deputy under the colors of La République en Marche (LRM) in 2017, already saw herself stacked up five more years in the fifth constituency of Eure, in the northeast of this rural department. She who, previously, had made herself known as a columnist in the program “Les Grandes Gueules” on RMC was convinced of it to the point of affirming it in the regional press a few weeks before the formalization of the investitures of the presidential majority. .
But, on May 5, Claire O’Petit is finally disavowed. The various right mayor of Vernon, François Ouzilleau, who was also seeking the nomination of the presidential majority, was preferred to him. The latter was pushed by the new minister of the armies and still president of the department of Eure, Sébastien Lecornu, to whom he is very close. Of the five Euro constituencies, all conquered by LRM five years ago, the former “Grand Gueule” is the only one of the outgoing deputies to be sidelined.
Hesitating at first to present himself as a dissenter, Claire O’Petit changed her mind to, she says, avoid the election of a deputy from the National Rally. But, a few days later, she still wanted to settle accounts with those she accuses of having dismissed her, Sébastien Lecornu in the lead. “I knew that by defending the position of the population I would alienate the little local barons. Today I am paying the price for my commitment, my frankness and my freedom”, she wrote in a vitriolic press release. In his eyes, his “non-allegiance” to Sébastien Lecornu, for having refused to adhere to the minister’s movement, Together for the Eure, as well as to his bill on the non-accumulation of local mandates, would have been fatal to him. “This is what displeased these gentlemen”she asserts, also believing that her original sin was to beat one of the minister’s relatives, Alexandre Rassaërt (the mayor of Gisors, in the 5th district of Eure), in the previous legislative elections, in 2017.
Essential boss
Beyond that, Claire O’Petit, a historic “walker” who has often claimed to be in direct line with Emmanuel Macron, sees herself as a victim of the ambitions of these former Norman right-wing elected officials who have passed through the ranks of LRM, targeting the Minister of the Armed Forces and the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, as well as the ally of the presidential party, Edouard Philippe, the former Prime Minister and Mayor of Le Havre.
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