On Wednesday, March 18, the Socialist Party announced it was withdrawing "all forms of support" from Yassin Zeghli, the La France Insoumise candidate in Argenteuil (Val-d'Oise) who had qualified for the second round of the municipal elections. The reason given was the revelation of a past conviction for "domestic violence," deemed incompatible with the Socialist Party's stated position on violence against women.
Olivier Faure's party is also asking its members to "withdraw from the campaign" and specifies that the "Nous les Argenteuillais.es" list will not be able to use its logo. A clear, almost surgical gesture. And politically, an admission: the local agreement that had united the left behind Mr. Zeghli was already a highly sensitive issue.
A left-wing alliance that is fracturing three days before the vote
A united left is fracturing three days before the vote. Yassin Zeghli came in second in the first round, behind the incumbent mayor, Georges Mothron (LR), with 26,53% of the vote, ahead of two other left-wing lists: Philippe Doucet's (13%) and the Socialist Nicolas Bougeard's (12,54%). The strategy was simple: unite in the second round to try and unseat the incumbent. However, a municipal campaign is also a battle for image, for building connections, for setting an example, and here the Socialist Party (PS) believes a red line has been crossed. "Such acts cannot be compatible" with its fight against violence against women, it wrote, speaking of an "intolerable attack on the exemplary conduct" expected of a representative of the Republic. In Argenteuil, the left suddenly finds itself defending a political alliance that has become a liability.
On the LFI side, the response was immediate and highly political. Paul Vannier, the constituency's member of parliament and head of elections, asserted that Mr. Zeghli was running with "a clean record [following] a court decision," without specifying whether he was contesting the aforementioned conviction or if it had been expunged. He also accused the right wing of "illegal practices" and announced a lawsuit, a way of shifting the debate to the realm of procedure rather than the substance of the issue. According to published information, Yassin Zeghli was sentenced on January 13, 2023, to four months' imprisonment, suspended. A stark reality remains, whether one is a left-wing voter or not: just hours before the election, Argenteuil is now voting with this affair as its backdrop, and the shockwaves could well extend beyond the city limits.
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