Voters have decided in the political war which is shaking the summit of the town hall of Mantes-la-Jolie. Raphaël Cognet (DVD), former mayor who resigned, was re-elected on Sunday in the first round, as in 2020, of the municipal by-election. He thus won his duel with his ex-mentor Pierre Bédier, current president of the Yvelines department.
With a score of around 51%, Raphaël Cognet was ahead of the list of Jean-Luc Santini who was deputy town planning (30.74%) and on which appeared Pierre Bédier, former mayor of Mantes-la-Jolie. This result therefore marks a political turning point for this city located to the west of Paris which had been in the hands of the strongman of Yvelines since 1995.
The fractured local right
The open war between Raphaël Cognet, first elected mayor in 2017, and Pierre Bédier, which has been going on since this fall, led to the resignation in January of the first, former foal of the second, and fractured the local right. “The people are always right, it is the principle of the election (…). Only the future will tell us if an unscrupulous ambitious man whose selfishness will be discovered by the new team can make an elected official playing collective and devoted to the public good, ”reacted on Twitter Pierre Bédier.
In all, six lists were in competition in the first round with in particular these two lists on the right. The one that could have stood out was that of Guillaume Quévarec, supported by LFI, the Socialist Party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, the Communist Party and who presented himself as “an alternative to the clientelist and communitarian system”. Guillaume Quévarec comes third with around 10.74% of the vote. In the first round of the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 54% of the vote.
Cognet attacked during the campaign
In this city, which has 45,000 inhabitants, the turnout reached 42.52%, with 9,577 voters going to the polls. A few days before the election, Raphaël Cognet had been attacked in the middle of the electoral campaign in the popular district of Val-Fourré, which has always voted mainly for Pierre Bédier.
Source: 20minutes
