In 2017, they were part of the cohort of elected LREM in the wake of Emmanuel Macron. Five years later, four deputies with “ecological sensitivity” represent themselves with the union of the left around Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and try to explain their change of direction in the face of criticism. The best known of them, the mathematician and Fields medalist Cédric Villani, hopes to keep his seat in the 5th district of Essonne. “Macron’s problem in general is that his program is not clear and is based only on the opinion of the leader,” he said.
Coming from the PS and close to Gérard Collomb at the start, Hubert Julien-Laferrière hopes to win again in the 2nd district of the Rhône. Macron, “we believed in it and we were disappointed” like “many women and men on the left”, says this ex-LREM, who like his three colleagues, went through the short-lived parliamentary group Ecology Democracy Solidarity, leaving the walkers.
In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the ex-LREM Delphine Bagarry, now a Nupes candidate, recognizes that the activists had to be “convinced of her sincerity”. “I explain. I have never changed my compass: the left. In the Assembly, I tried to influence the majority (LREM) on precariousness, social inequalities”, but “it was impossible”. A member of Emmanuel Macron’s close guard in 2017, Aurélien Taché is undoubtedly the one of the four to have criticized him with the most virulence in the second part of his mandate, on social issues and working-class neighborhoods.