2023-08-25 18:53:01
“The Minister’s perfectly mastered Sarko-Balkanyism today penalizes Tourcoing by ignoring a real political project”. For “Common Ambition”, a left-wing municipal opposition group from the city of Tourcoing, in the North, Gérald Darmanin leads an “old clientelist policy”. This is how, in a press release, the political return of the Minister of the Interior is defined, organized on Sunday in Tourcoing, a city of which he was elected mayor in 2020, before giving way to his co-lister Doriane Bécue .
It is true that Gérald Darmanin feels at home in Tourcoing. Re-elected in the first round in the 2020 municipal elections with 61% of the vote, his political group monopolizes 46 of the 53 seats in the town hall. Ambition Commune (3 elected), EELV (2 elected) and the RN (2 elected) share the remaining crumbs. But this inventory deserves to be qualified by the record abstention rate of 75% and by the poor results of Gérald Darmanin in the legislative elections of 2022 in the only municipality of Tourquennoise.
“He has already gone for a walk to the market”
But Tourcoing, the minister is keen on it. Gossips will note that, in his ministerial diary, he does not hesitate to regularly schedule trips to the North at the end of the week in order to be able to spend the weekend in his stronghold. And even if, obviously, his ambition is no longer to one day lead the 3rd city of Hauts-de-France, the minister sits two to three times a year on the municipal council, organized on Saturday morning, market day.
“We see him for 30 minutes, the time to give the opposition a few pleasantries and when we want to answer, he has already gone for a walk in the market and in the cafes. He arranges for as many people as possible to see him, ”balances Katy Vuylsteker, elected ecologist EELV. For her too, the “meeting of notables, organized on Sunday, is an instrumentalization of the Tourquennois used as decor and extras”.
Especially since the botanical garden, which will host the event, risks being privatized for the occasion. “It will deprive the inhabitants of a leisure space while the minister has the means to rent a private room”, she denounces. However, Gérald Darmanin seems to want to make working classes and social problems his new battle horse, as he expresses in an interview published this Friday in The voice of the North.
“Social players have never increased in Tourcoing”
“Sunday, I will say that the social question is essential. (…) I feel legitimate to raise my finger and say that we must take care of the social pot that is boiling, ”underlines the minister. Words that exasperate Olivier Masson, spokesperson for the “Common Ambition” group. “He keeps talking about his proximity to the working classes, while funding for social actors has never increased in Tourcoing since he was elected mayor. In addition, the poverty rate continues to increase in the municipality *”, slips the opponent on the left.
Nevertheless, the mayor of Tourcoing, Doriane Bécue estimated, in 2021, on BFMTV, that Géarld Darmanin, minister, was “a chance for the city”. “When we have complicated files, we ask for help from the State and there is always someone to listen to Gérald. he always gives good advice and is present for his city,” she says.
Still, social dialogue with municipal officials also seems complicated. In July, all union bodies boycotted a meeting with the town hall, according to our information. “He uses the city as a stepping stone for his presidential ambitions, regrets Olivier Masson. This champion of mixing genres has long since broken the dikes separating the popular from populism. »
* According to the Observatory of Inequalities, it was 25% in 2014 and 27% in 2020.
#opposition #denounces #Darmanins #clientelist #policy