Legislative elections in the Eastern Pyrenees: who are the 27 candidates?

The New Popular Front positions itself in the Eastern Pyrenees as the main opponent of the National Rally. Here in 2022, candidates led by Louis Aliot, the North Carolina mayor of Perpignan, achieved a Grand Slam, sometimes with impressive results: Anaïs Sabatini with 61% in the 2nd arrondissement, Michel Martinez with 56% in the 4th district. Since then, the results recorded in the last European elections (43.38% of the departmental vote) have further strengthened this PH superiority, with a logical renewal of four outgoings since Sunday evening.

But still a large contingent of abstainers (48.22%) must be remobilized in the hope of changing the order of the Catalan world. “We have to go and get the ballots out of the pockets of these abstainers. It is this mobilization that will allow us to reverse this trend. And this time we will be able to count on the support of the PS, which was not necessarily the case in 2022,” analyzes Nathalie Callell, associate professor of modern literature at the Font-Romeu high school, candidate of the New Popular Front. LFI in the 3rd arrondissement (Perpignan-Prade-Fond-Romeu. RN with 39% for Europeans).

We remember that in 2022, Carol Delga, President of the PS Region, opposed Nupes, encouraged and supported the candidacies of dissidents in the first round. The duel between the outgoing Sandrine Souh-Dogor (RN) and the New Popular Front may be decided by Laurence Gaite (Ensemble), Macronist MP from 2017 to 2022, to whom we preferred to invest Pierre Bataille… only to lose in first round.

Doctor in the arena

In the first arrondissement (Perpignan), won in 2022 by RN Sophie Blanc (53.87%), the Republican current is represented in a dispersed order: Annabelle Brunet, councilor of the department under the central democratic label, Loïc Moschkowiz of Les Républicains, and then university professor Christophe Heuze The Macronist, who became an MP after skydiving in Sète in 2017, was brutally beaten in 2022 in Hérault. In this context, Francis Daspé (Popular Front), a very active head of the LFI department, represents the most serious contender to fight the hegemony of the RN (41.22% among Europeans).

In the second district (six candidates), this is an unprecedented configuration with the spontaneous appearance on the scene of Marc Medina, a mayor without the Torreille label, claiming to be a centrist. “In my doctor’s office I found myself with patients who were disoriented, lost in the effects of the Europeans and relying on their caregivers to know what they could do,” explains the man, who is also vice-president of the metropolis of Perpignan. In this constituency with strong RN roots, MP Anaïs Sabatini (61% in 2022) is now firmly established (49% among Europeans). LR and Ensemble do not put forward candidates to pave the way for the “doctor”, while the new Popular Front invested, as in 2022, the ecologist Philippe Berrouet.

PS inherited the nomination in the fourth district (7 candidates, Primorye), won in 2022 by R.N. Michel Martinez (56%, 42% for Europeans). Antoine Parra, mayor of PS Argelès-sur-Mer and also president of the community of Côte-Vermeil, put forward a very strong candidacy before deciding to withdraw from the game after the official inauguration of the young federal secretary Julien Barayer, who on Friday afternoon won the final battle with the local representative Place Publique. Micro-parties (Reconquista, Workers’ Struggle, etc.) also have their candidates.