Legislative in Ille-et-Vilaine: Frédéric Mathieu (Nupes) wants a majority to “lead another policy”

“We are already at work“reacts Frédéric Mathieu, the day after the first round of the legislative elections. The candidate of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) in the first constituency of Ille-et-Vilaine was the guest of France Bleu Armorique this Monday morning. With 39.27% ​​of the vote in the first round, he is ahead of the candidate Ensemble Hind Saoud (32.67%).The Nupes is also in the lead in 4 of the 8 constituencies of the department.He calls on voters to give a majority to the Nupes, so that Emmanuel Macron is “confined to cutting the ribbons and inaugurating the chrysanthemums“.

Are you satisfied or are you already preparing for the second round?

We are quite satisfied. We have already started a week of activism which will be very short, five days is not much. So, we are already hard at work this morning. There are things that are happening: we are printing leaflets, we are thinking about what we are going to do, especially since we are going to have, I believe, a week of heat wave so that will change the modes of activism a little bit.

In this first constituency of Ille-et-Vilaine, there had been no deputy for a year and the resignation of Moustapha Laabid, former deputy of the Republic on the move, after his conviction, so it was also special during your country ? And will it be this week?

We were necessarily told a little bit about it during the campaign, but it didn’t really occupy much of our minds. So, people still remained on the political program with questions and exchanges, sometimes contradictions. Nope, I think Laabid is behind it, and we hope that La République En Marche will be behind it in a few days.

What are your vote reserves for next Sunday compared to your opponent, the majority candidate?

There were 14 of us, so it’s pretty hard to say. Afterwards, there are parties or formations which position themselves on the left, which presented candidates, I am thinking for example of the UDB or the POID. I don’t call them. If there is a call to be made, it is up to them to make it, it is up to them to decide it. We know very well today that the dynamics of calls, in relation to voters, is not often obvious. We are no longer at the time when everyone was the little finger on the seam of the pants and followed the calls to vote. I think that the main thing for us is really to return to the field and convince our voters.

In Ille et Vilaine, seven candidates are qualified out of eight constituencies, it is even the Nupes which is leading in four out of four constituencies. Has this alliance strategy paid off?

Yes, she paid, but she paid because it’s not just a strategy. It is also a political project of government with 650 proposals and not a kind of electoral cartel, as La République En Marche tries to say painfully today. That’s what it pays for. It’s also because we agreed on a certain number of things, thatwe assume on 33 points not to be completely in agreement, these are not direct contradictions, and to submit the debates on these 33 points to Parliament. I think that this transparency, this desire for parliamentarism too, is something the French need.

Concretely, what objectives in terms of constituencies for Ille-et-Vilaine next Sunday?

Even during the campaign, I was told “it’s good, you’ll finish in the lead“and I said”I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to know, we do the work, we unroll and we see“. I don’t want to make political guesses, we know that we are very well placed in certain constituencies, we know that probably, this is likely to pass, but an election is played in two rounds and it is won once it is won.

More than one in two voters did not vote yesterday, does that worry you? What can you tell them to convince them to go next Sunday?

Yes, it’s worrying, but it was also skilfully maintained by the outgoing majority, which has contrived to avoid all debates and to avoid at all costs the cleavage which it does not want. Inevitably, they succeeded, through their media power, in convincing people that it was useless. What I crave is “it’s good for something since you’re going to elect the people who are going to write the law for five years”. We know that abstentionism is on the left, overwhelmingly. I say to these women and mendo not despair, it is not because Macron was elected President of the Republic that he has all the powers”. He had all the powers over the last term, precisely because he had a majority in the National Assembly. We can have this majority with the Nupes and pursue another policy. And then, in this case Emmanuel Macron will be confined to cutting the ribbons and inaugurating the chrysanthemums.