FN-Jacques Peyrat Electoral Agreement for the Departmental Elections?

We received this article from our colleague Minute, which we publish with the aim of providing comprehensive and impartial information.

Last Friday, February 4, Marine Le Pen was in Nice. Accompanied by Steeve Briois, the FN’s general secretary. A trip made with the utmost discretion.
The visit was not on the FN president’s agenda.
However, it was significant.
At stake: the possibility of a reconciliation, and an electoral agreement for the departmental elections in March, with the former mayor of Nice,
Jacques Peyrat, who left the National Front in 1994 in order to be able to
win the mayor’s office the following year. He explained at the time in the pages of “Minute”: “There is no other solution
to win the mayor’s office in Nice than to put the FN label in one’s
pocket. I hope Jean-Marie Le Pen will understand that by proposing today another form of political action at the local level, I am merely
tracing the path that will allow us to no longer be demonized in the future. Political effectiveness must take precedence over everything else.” Jean-Marie Le Pen did not
understand, or did not want to understand, but the operation worked
and Jacques Peyrat remained mayor of Nice until 2008. He was,
at the same time, a senator of the Alpes-Maritimes.
Today without any mandate, Jacques Peyrat, president of the Republican Alliance, has launched a bid to reclaim the 14th district of Nice, where he was
elected from 1992 to 1998. The district is very right-wing: in 2004, the socialist
Paul Cuturello, who succeeded him, was re-elected in a duel with the Front National candidate Gérard de Gubernatis: 54.38% against 45.32%.
Certainly, the FN is no longer, in Nice, on the activist level, what it once
was, and during the last municipal elections in 2008, its list
led by Lydia Schenardi received only… 4.16% of the votes.
Lydia Schenardi’s resignation looms
If Marine Le Pen has traveled to Nice, it is because, locally, the situation is tense and the Alpes-Maritimes federation is divided – a local custom! – between those who want an agreement with Jacques Peyrat
and those who do not want to hear about it, still considering him
a “traitor”. Not to mention some personal grudges
that should be private but interfere with political choices. Hence the need to bring everyone together, the activists and the departmental office, so that each person can express themselves and the president of the National Front can make a decision with full knowledge of the facts.
According to our sources, the meeting was tense. Sometimes stormy. Departmental
secretary of the FN for the Alpes-Maritimes, Lydia Schenardi
threatened to resign from her responsibilities if an agreement was reached – which she denied to us on Monday, but we confirm. Bruno
Ligonie, deputy departmental secretary, did the same. But the
breakup was avoided. Lydia Schenardi even sent an email
to Marine Le Pen to inform her that she would abide by
the headquarters’ decision. “It’s not by throwing everything overboard that one
achieves one’s goals,” she confided to us. “Whatever the decision taken,
I will see through the departmental elections.”
A way of saying she won’t go… beyond? Her resignation after the departmental elections is considered a given within the National Front.
For Xavier Garcia, spokesperson for the PS in the Alpes-Maritimes, an agreement between Jacques Peyrat and the National Front “would restart the departmental elections
in Nice.” “Our main ob – jective is to keep the 14th
district,” he explained to us on Monday.
The main objective of the UMP is to take it, with Dominique Estrosi-
Sassone [the wife° of the mayor, Christian Estrosi, Editor’s note] as a candidate.
Today, he believes, the presence of an FN candidate against Jac –
ques Peyrat “plays into the hands of the UMP.”
“It would especially play into the hands of the Socialist Party,” retorted Jacques Peyrat.
On the other hand, adds Xavier Garcia, a Peyrat/FN agreement would constitute “an earthquake.”

A takeover viewed on the National Front’s federation.
Monday evening at eight o’clock, at the time when we were forced to
close this edition, nothing was yet decided. Since 4 p.m., the national
candidate selection committee of the National Front was meeting to
decide on many cases, including that of the agreement or not with Jacques
Peyrat. “We are waiting for the hierarchy’s decision,” Lydia
Schenardi confided to us. “I haven’t seen any white smoke,” added Jacques Peyrat.
Did Lydia Schenardi hope the verdict would be unfavorable?
For Peyrat, who assures he did not meet Marine Le Pen during her visit last Friday, any possible agreement could only be sealed “despite the objections of this lovely woman,” against whom he was particularly
agitated: “You are the fifth journalist to call me after having
spoken to Lydia Schenardi. She keeps causing a mess by talking at random! It’s the only way she’s found to
get attention. She should shut her mouth! I’ve always thought she was an idiot, but now she’s gone too far!”

So nothing was certain on Monday evening still, and a turn of events could not
be ruled out. Because the tension is so high, there are other stakes than just this
departmental election. First, the departmental federation of the Alpes-Maritimes FN,
whose state is such that Jacques Peyrat’s entourage has outright proposed to
take it over! The offer had been made to Marine Le Pen and Louis Aliot before the
FN congress. Too early… Lydia Schenardi, who had been informed, had
vetoed it and threatened to make her departmental office resign.
It was unthinkable to take such a risk before the congress for the succession of
Jean-Marie Le Pen, despite the excellent relations that Jacques Peyrat’s campaign manager maintains with
Louis Aliot, and the resumption of relations between Jacques Peyrat and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The other stake is the Nice mayor’s office, which Jacques Peyrat
is considering reclaiming in 2014, an election that could mark his revenge on a Christian Estrosi who unseated him in 2008. Now
Lydia Schenardi, in addition to not wanting to hear about Jacques Peyrat’s return
to the National Front, still sees herself as mayor of Nice despite her
stinging defeat in 2008. She would barely accept a united list, provided she leads it, which is unacceptable
for Peyrat. And he has already launched his own union strategy with the Identitarians of Nissa Rebela…
A “global discussion among all opponents of Estrosi”?
Concluded last January 12, this agreement, signed by Jacques Peyrat and by
Philippe Vardon, president of Nissa Rebela and member of the executive board of
the Bloc Identitaire, materializes with the Identitarians’ support for Jacques Peyrat
in the 14th district, Jacques Peyrat’s support for Philippe Vardon in
the 3rd district of Nice, and mutual support for the second round in districts where candidates from the Republican Alliance and Identity candidates would be in competition. The text is unambiguous about the municipal elections of 2014: “The gathering initiated today is of course intended to expand to ultimately create a Niçoise agreement platform
offering a real alternative to the current municipal policy.”
As for this agreement in the context of a potential agreement between the National Front and Jacques Peyrat, “Marine Le Pen did not bring up the question,” assures Lydia Schenardi, adding: “We will need to talk about it. The Identitaires are not negligible in the department.” During
a partial district election, Benoît Loeuillet, for example, received nearly 8% of the votes in Nice in 2009, coming in only five votes behind the FN candidate.
In fact, the subject was indeed discussed last Friday, briefly. Just enough time for
the FN leadership to remind that it was on the departmental FN’s decision that a proposed agreement last year by Nissa Rebela was rejected…
According to Jacques Peyrat, not only is his agreement with Nissa Rebela not challenged, but if there was an agreement with the FN, “it could be articulated. At least I hope so, it will need to be debated”.
As for Philippe Vardon, while he “regrets that so much time has been lost in dithering and personal quarrels that had nothing political,” he confirms that he is still in favor of a “global discussion
among all opponents of Christian Estrosi, as we had hoped since last year.” In a city, the fifth largest in France by population, which, in the 2008 municipals, voted two-thirds for right-wing lists, an anti-Estrosi coalition can indeed cause real concerns for the incumbent mayor.