The municipal battle rages in Le Havre. And that electrifies Jean-Paul Lecoq. Here is finally a fight to measure. He who took the seat of deputy to the Socialist Party in 2017 now wants to bring down the house Edouard Philippe. A few days before the first round of the municipal ballot, he dreams of settling in the immense town hall and thus seeing again a communist mayor sit there. The building of Auguste Perret with the imposing colonnade of beige concrete was conquered by the right to the Communist Party (PCF) in 1995. More than a revenge, Jean-Paul Lecoq can more prosaically hope to impose a second round on the Prime Minister . A possibility far from being acquired a few weeks ago.
Tall and broad, with an easy smile and the handshake retained in these times of coronavirus, the former electrician roams the streets of the Mont-Gaillard district with appetite. “It’s time to go”, he launched to the assistance of regulars of the Forum. In this bar located at the bottom of the HLM housing estates, he is at home, with his blue canvas jacket strung over a down jacket of the same tone. The rather old public listens attentively to its rant against the town hall on the right “Who does everything for the city center”.
Here, as in the other popular districts of the north of the agglomeration, the atmosphere is weighed down by the abolished posts in local public services and shops that are closing. The municipality has concentrated its transformation efforts around the pools in the city center. A change that seems to mark the remoteness of a wealthy segment of the Le Havre population, when the more popular strata massed on the heights feel excluded. “The showcase is beautiful but everything becomes paid and too expensive for the poor”, notes Nathalie Nail, PCF municipal councilor.
“It’s playable”
Mr. Lecoq surveys the districts where the popular electorate is receptive. This Monday, March 9, under a trolling sky, it is in Pierre-Semard, an old railway town south of the city, that a dozen activists go door-to-door. The welcome is warm when the member presents himself “I am a candidate against Edouard Philippe”. “With the crap he did on pensions, I will vote for you”, says a retiree. Same atmosphere, a little later, in the alleys of Grand Cap, the Mont-Gaillard shopping mall, which sees its signs lowering the curtain. “Of course the other junk, I don’t want it”, gets angry in her fifties.
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