“Isolating myself in a studio allowed me to think about the future,” says Agnès Buzyn

• After the first round of the municipal elections, three candidates remain in the running in the capital: Anne Hidalgo (PS-EELV), Rachida Dati (LR) and Agnès Buzyn (LREM).
• Arriving in third position with 17.3% of the votes cast, the former Minister of Health announced on May 26 that she would stay in the battle for Paris.
• “My goal is to be mayor of Paris. A second half is never played in advance, “said candidate LREM on Tuesday. 20 minutes.

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We left it a little before the first round of municipal and confinement, on the roof of its HQ in the 15th arrondissement. Optimistic and boosted by rather encouraging polls,
Agnes Buzyn we
declared : “I think I have managed heavier and more dangerous things than the Paris town hall. »The LREM candidate for mayor of
Paris, finally in third position on March 15 (17.3%), is now credited with 20% in the second round
according to a last poll, far behind Rachida Dati (LR) and Anne Hidalgo (PS-EELV).

In an unprecedented context where the in-between towers stretched over more than 100 days, the former Minister of Health reflected on the post-Covid period in the capital, and drew up measures for schools and shops, while reconsidering its confinement. “I haven’t caught the virus,” she slides us into her office, where she answers questions from 20 minutes on his program and
his return to this campaign disrupted by the epidemic, when the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the management of the health crisis, a few hours after our interview on Tuesday morning.

We are in the final stretch of this campaign, 18 days from the second round. Is it the end of your way of the cross or the start of a new adventure?

It is the beginning of an exciting adventure in local political life in which I have wished to engage for a long time, with determination.

Three weeks before the start of confinement, during an interview with 20 minutes, you said: “I was able to fully engage in the municipal elections by leaving a ministry where I settled many files: the hospital file was behind me and, concerning the coronavirus, I anticipated the epidemic by preparing the healthcare system. ” Today, the coronavirus has killed more than 29,000 people in France. Do you regret these comments?

No, we have to put them in context. I will have the opportunity to explain this to the parliamentary committees of inquiry.

You said you were “anxious” to respond to these commissions. Why ?

Because I feel that the questions come up regularly. There is a form of impatience. I have to answer before the national representation. The sooner I do so, the sooner I can clarify the actions implemented in government.

A few minutes before the start of containment, The world publish your statements: “I knew that the tsunami wave was before us (…) We should have stopped everything, it was a masquerade”. Did you apologize for the word “masquerade”, but do you assume that you downplayed the scale of the crisis at the time?

You call that minimize? With the government, we have considered all the hypotheses. We have prepared the health care system and taken a lot of measures since January. We said things, and we acted. We have done our utmost.

After these statements, you disappeared from speed cameras. How did your confinement go?

For two weeks, I helped cancer centers, which I know well because I chaired the National Cancer Institute. Then I went work at Percy Hospital (Hauts-de-Seine) where I took care of sick people from Covid-19. As I went there every day, I did like many caregivers, I isolated myself in a studio so as not to risk spreading the virus to my family. It allowed me to take a step back, to look, to listen, to think about the future. And that’s why I’m here today.

You say you have thought about the future. As a candidate, did this period allow you to reflect?

Verry much. Resuming my profession as a doctor allowed me to speak with the sick and their families. And it allowed me to look at political life with a little perspective. Political negotiations and short sentences do not interest people. What matters to me today is to take measures that affect the daily lives of Parisians.

During the confinement, these Parisians asked themselves a lot of questions about their daily life, their future. As a Parisian, what lessons do you draw from this period?

I felt fear, like everyone, the worry of losing a loved one. I also saw enormous resilience, and enormous solidarity. In the building in which I live, we saw mutual assistance, a desire to meet up in the morning in the courtyard to have a coffee in the sun. It strengthened the close ties that we lacked in Paris. Paris was a city that isolates. This confinement isolated single people but it also allowed some to find links with their neighborhood. There have been lots of initiatives showing that Parisians have enormous creativity. It is this resilience and creativity that I wish I could unleash in the years to come.

When replacing Benjamin Griveaux, you are greeted by some walkers like the messiah. Finally, disenchantment prevails over the weeks in the ranks, especially after your score in the first round. “No one thinks that Agnes Buzyn will be elected mayor of Paris anymore,” Marlène Schiappa recently wrote to LREM activists. Do you feel like you’ve fallen out of favor?

Not at all. I have a lot of support among the campaign teams. And when I go to the field, I have a very favorable reception from Parisians. During the confinement, people stopped me on the street saying “we are counting on you for the second round”. They consider that this middle way, that of the presidential majority, must be carried politically in the capital. It must exist at the Paris Council.

You had crashed Benjamin Griveaux’s program and purified it before the coronavirus crisis. Today, you’re adding post-Covid specials to it. What remains of your project for Paris?

The program must be reviewed in the light of emergencies and the risk of a loss of attractiveness of the city, for families, traders, artisans. The urgency is the economic recovery. There is a government plan, a European plan, and Paris must have its own plan. My priority is a Marshall plan for traders and artisans because I don’t want curtain closings. I propose a complete exemption from taxes for the first year, possibly renewable. I also propose a liberalization of opening hours, evenings and weekends, so that those who wish can recover turnover. It will also respect social distancing and spread out the flows in public transport.

My second priority is families. We can see that welcoming children to school remains problematic, too punctual, and families are afraid for the start of the school year. In the next five years, I propose a major renovation project for our schools, to adapt them to health and climate challenges. We have to rethink our schools so that families want to stay in Paris.

The outgoing mayor has addressed this issue, in particular with schoolyards more suited to climate change. She didn’t go far enough, do you think?

Only 5% of the schools benefited from the renovation of the courses. We know that the heat wave phenomena will increase. If we don’t adapt our schools, our children will no longer be able to go there.

You have added 1 billion euros to the ecological transition program, aligning yourself with the 5 billion proposed by Cédric Villani. What would this additional billion be used for?

Cédric Villani has the right ambition. The ecological transition is an imperative. We must give ourselves the means. We need a major modernization plan for our public transport network, the automation of subway trains, smart lights to make the bus network more fluid, more greening. It was the ambition of Cédric Villani, I agree with him and I take up his proposals.

You talk a lot about the attractiveness of Paris, but with this crisis, the city seemed more brutal to many people. Some left very quickly, others stayed in sometimes complicated conditions. How to revive Paris, when telework encourages residents to leave? Is Paris still obvious?

Paris has already lost nearly 70,000 inhabitants in five years. With teleworking, this movement is likely to increase. My imperative is that families and children want to live in Paris. A city without children is a city that is dying. We also need to make sure that businesses stay. This is why I want a qualitative tourism development plan, not a quantitative one. We must forget about this mass tourism that we concentrate in a few streets and make French and international tourists discover this Paris of the districts.

In terms of attractiveness, real estate is an important subject in Paris. Are new measures needed?

I already had a plan to identify empty homes, around 100,000 in Paris. The goal is to support the owners of 20,000 homes in their marketing, with a guarantee fund, a fund for the renovation of outdated homes. With teleworking, some companies will reduce their office space. One can imagine that a certain number of premises are renovated in social housing or for the middle classes. We must support this movement.

Do you hope that with teleworking places will change?

They are changing. With this health crisis, we have to rethink the world of work. Telework can reduce the flow of transport, which would be of benefit to everyone. However, we also need people who come to work in Paris. Paris must be a multifaceted city.

Winning the Paris town hall seemed very attainable for LREM several months ago…

(She cuts) Not that much when I went into the campaign …

After the first round, it seems even less attainable. What is your goal today? Have an LREM opposition group on the Paris Council?

My goal is to be mayor of Paris. A second half is never played in advance. I’m going to win.

Do you believe in the escalada?

I think the program I offer to Parisians meets their needs. Today, many of them support the government and want to assert it. Above all, I believe that nothing has ever been played out in politics. I have three weeks left to campaign.

Do you fear strong abstention, as in the first round, which could particularly penalize you?

This is a risk, because this date can also be a date of departure on vacation. We are obviously looking to mobilize abstainers in the first round and avoid abstentionism in the second round, in particular by seeking proxies.

On a possible agreement with Rachida Dati, you say that it was not envisaged for fear of “losing readability”.

We don’t want a device deal. We do not have the same program, nor the same convictions as Rachida Dati. The vision I carry for Paris is much more global than just the safety and cleanliness issues, which are important but do not make a vision of the city.

By accepting a situation like that of the 5th arrondissement, don’t you lose readability?

LR runners wished to join Florence Berthout’s list in the 5th on a district project. I had left it to each head of the district list to possibly find local agreements on their project. I remind you that LREM maintains a top of the list in all the boroughs. The agreements that took place were people who joined our lists, not the other way around. We did not make an alliance to join someone else’s project.

If Anne Hidalgo wins, how do you see the next six years in Paris?

Do not play the second and third round until they are played.