It is 8 pm this Sunday, February 16, and the rain begins to fall in front of the Mon Paris brasserie, where Agnès Buzyn is to meet for the first time those who will campaign with her. To warm up and bring the candidate who is late, activists and head of the list of districts begin to chant “Agnes! “
They go on with Bella Ciao, then howl ” We will win ! We will win ! ” Despite the increasingly heavy rain, they smile. What if this victory they no longer believed in became possible again? Yes, “I’m going to win”, ensures the new candidate.
Knock over the table. Start from scratch, and try to win the municipal elections in Paris, after months of a half-failed campaign and the sudden abandonment of Benjamin Griveaux, thirty days before the election. This is the audacious mission entrusted by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron to Agnes Buzyn.
The Minister of Solidarity and Health was chosen on Sunday to take over from the candidate who was disqualified by the revelation of a sexual video. She immediately resigned from the government, and has been replaced by Olivier Véran. She is now the official candidate for La République en Marche (LRM) in the capital, notably facing two other women, the outgoing socialist Anne Hidalgo and Rachida Dati, the headliner of the Les Républicains (LR) party.
Create a new dynamic
Bombed at the head of a team of some 500 candidates whom she often does not know, Agnès Buzyn should hardly touch the already drawn up lists, which must be deposited in prefecture before February 27. She will just have to choose a district where to be herself a candidate. Maybe the 17the, in the place left by Benjamin Griveaux.
She could review the program further. “We will probably remove things that did not stick, like the move from the East station to the suburbs”, advances an elected official.
The official objective is not only to save the furniture, after the difficulties of series of Benjamin Griveaux, gradually passed from the status of favorite to that of third or fourth candidate in the voting intentions. Agnès Buzyn, 57, is responsible for creating a new dynamic. “She is in a position to change the equation, to favor the gathering”, wants to believe a macronie strategist. “Par its personal weight, it can modify the balance of power, even if it is degraded and compromised “, supports a relative of the head of state.
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