It is almost 10 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, 2020. Jean-Luc Moudenc, who will celebrate his 60th birthday in a fortnight, passes the great door of chapters, a half smile on his lips. He is lulled by the joy of his family, congratulated by his friends and running mate, machine-gunned by the photographers. Others would have said bravado. But like all discreet people, he does not like attitudes.
He walks in step with the owner who goes to prune the roses in his garden. Because he’s still at home here. A few minutes earlier, he understood that it was still on his watch that Toulouse would read the time for six years.
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The verdict of this second round of municipal elections is final. Although given losing by the last three polls of the campaign, Jean-Luc Moudenc clearly distances his competitor, the ecologist Antoine Maurice (Citizen Archipelago list). The final results: 51,98 % ; nearly 4,000 voices apart.
“Toulouse does not like ideology”
At the same time, we learn about the unique and impressive roll of honor that environmentalists are offering themselves. On the map of France, the boss of EE-Les Verts, Yannick Jadot, has just surrounded the cities of Lyon, of Nancy, of Strasbourg, maybe from Marseille, and – inside! – de the old city of bordeaux, stronghold of the right since the time when Robespierre was a young man. It will not surround the Pink City, although of all, it was the most historically anchored on the left and favorable to the so-called “progressive” forces…
In front of the strained microphones, Jean-Luc Moudenc spares his explanation:
Toulouse is a city of passions, but in the end she chooses the point of equilibrium. The Toulousains don’t like ideology. And the alliance between the Greens, the Insubmissives, elements of the far left, that does not correspond to the city.
This certainty, he did not stop exploiting it during this long campaign of a little more than a year. And he’s gotten tougher in recent months, lambasting here “The red vests”, the “The ultra-left”… When several national supporters, such Clementine Autain or Benoît hamon, came to display alongside Antoine Maurice in the streets of Toulouse Tuesday June 23, 2020, Jean-Luc Moudenc also heard the highlight of “False citizenship of Archipelago”. To a few journalists questioning him, he even decided to heat them so that they would make tons of them: “Film, photograph, show Toulousans how Archipel is no longer a citizen!«
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The deviation of Citizen Archipelago
The progressive politicization of Citizen Archipelago will undoubtedly remain the main factor in its loss of momentum over the weeks. Launched in 2017 by a handful of informed citizens, eager to propose a new way of building a municipal policy, the innovative approach of Archipel Citoyen has gradually sacrificed its initial intentions.
And in the eyes of their adversaries, political reality has pushed the promoters of Archipelago to no longer respect the contract signed with the benevolence that the people of Toulouse had placed in this promise of renewal. In the end, the list and the project became the business of no less than 16 political parties, who had also started by conspiring, the candidate supported by the PS even matching the “Archipelians” to “Candidates for the animation of the MJC”.
During this time, and from the beginning to the end of this long campaign, Jean-Luc Moudenc kept to the “coherence” of a single project and a list that will not budge, made up of 50% of people actually from civil society.
Also read: THE GREAT INTERVIEW. Municipal in Toulouse. Jean-Luc Moudenc: “The real citizen list is ours! “
The watermelon theorem
The political alliance, maybe too wide, proposed by Archipelago will also have frightened more than one voter. This is the feeling given by the numerous declarations of voting intentions publicly expressed or the barely veiled procrastination of various personalities from the left a few days before the second round… starting with Nadia Pellefigue. They embody the fear that the so-called “moderate” left formulated on reading the perspectives or faced with the whims of some members of the list, particularly from Insubordinate France.
Almost in one block, it is also the local economic community which has, like never in Toulouse, distributed warnings on warnings with regard to this list Archipel Citoyen awkward in its defense aeronautical interests, supporting badly local trade, theorizing, for some running mate, the decay.
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This set of criticisms did not necessarily concern the environmentalists on the list and even less the socialists – whose responsibility is no longer discussed – but rather the rebellious, whose virginity in matters of national and local governance, added to a speech sometimes too radicalized, still leave the voter like a hen in front of a knife.
Jean-Luc Moudenc knew how to play it, qualifying very early in his campaign, the Archipéliens of “Watermelons”, that is to say green on the outside and red on the inside, to better stigmatize the elements of theultra-left included in the list of his opponents. Revolver loaded with good words, he will not stop hammering behind “A nice green” hide from “Dangerous extremists”.
Jean-Luc Moudenc: door-to-door and tupperware
All of these messages, Jean-Luc Moudenc did not only distill them to the microphones of the press. He especially wore them directly in the living room of Toulousains. Jean-Luc Moudenc commissioned his entire team an impressive field campaign. A few hours before the second round, he summarized this work as follows:
My running mate has never stopped meeting Toulousans through an efficient door-to-door. As for me, I did Tupperware meetings by videoconference. Every evening, by computer, I chat with dozens of Toulouse residents.
Objective: try to convince theare abstainers and undecided. The same recipe was used in 2014, when Jean-Luc Moudenc had undertaken to reconquer the Capitol at the expense of the outgoing mayor Pierre Cohen.
This background work, Archipel Citoyen did not realize it, confining itself to leaflets on the markets and dynamism of its social networks. Faced with the militant force of the Republicans, directly inherited from the RPR, only that of the PS, arrived too late and not necessarily fully motivated, could compete.
Moudenc, greener than ever
This campaign also enabled Jean-Luc Moudenc’s running mate to promote a review that many on the left have always called ” not so bad “. Between two details on the financing of a third metro line awaited by a majority of Toulousains and the fight waged for the arrival of the LGV, the Moudenc team also skimmed with pragmatism the elements of responses to “the economic and social crisis, which is unfortunately before us”. Up to skillfully erect thepriority employment, “Because it is indeed the message that the Toulousains passed to me”, says Jean-Luc Moudenc. Antoine Maurice did not seem to have heard the same.
Chanting that “ecology has no political label” at a time when citizens on the other hand want ecology to be at the heart of all policies, the running mates of Aimer Toulouse have highlighted Jean-Luc Moudenc’s policy in this area to play better on the Archipel Citoyen field. Supporting figures, in order to “better compare what I did versus the time when Mr. Maurice was in business”, often amused himself by saying Jean-Luc Moudenc.
Besides, barely elected, Jean-Luc Moudenc he placed ecology among the priorities of the new mandate, speaking from the Red Capitoline Lounge, Sunday June 28:
To fight against global warming, develop the place of nature in the city, reduce the pollution of the air we breathe, accelerate the energy transformation of housing and buildings towards more sobriety, orient regional agricultural production towards ‘Toulousains’ food, accentuate the share of secure bicycle journeys and also make pedestrian journeys more secure, I would like more proactive action, always pragmatic, but never ideological.
Change, with pragmatism. Growth, in balance. It was the political approach of Pierre Baudis, mayor from 1971 to 1983. It was also that of Dominique Baudis (1983-2001), of which Jean-Luc Moudenc bears the legacy. This philosophy of political meekness partly explains this astonishing political paradox which sees the people of Toulouse voting massively on the left during each national election and trusting a mayor on the right, even when a significant wave smashes the political shore. To be completely fair, we will also say that the errors of the local left have often helped well … This time too.
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