LFI municipal elections in Vaulx-en-Velin and Vénissieux threatened with cancellation

LFI sockets in the Lyon suburbs are hanging by a thread. The Lyon administrative court was studying the appeals presented following the municipal elections in Vaulx-en-Velin and Vénissieux, where Abdelkader Lahmar and Idir Boumertit won last March by a few dozen votes. These emblematic conquests would have been marred by irregularities on the lists of opposing candidates. So much so that the public rapporteur recommended the cancellation of these two ballots.

In Vénissieux, an appeal had in fact been filed by the centrist candidate Pascal Dureau targeting Quentin Taïeb, a candidate labeled as far-right by the prefecture, placed in police custody a few days before the election. An investigation had in fact been opened into suspicions of fraudulent registration on the electoral lists on his part and that of his entourage.

Enough to distort the results, according to Pascal Dureau, in particular those of the first round, which allowed four lists to be maintained in the second. The centrist came third with 20.44%. His appeal could therefore play into the hands of the outgoing PCF mayor, Michèle Picard, beaten by the rebellious elected mayor, Idir Boumertit (34.11%), by 25 votes in the last communist bastion of the red suburbs of Lyon.

Three important catches for LFI

In Vaulx-en-Velin, it was also a centrist candidate who filed an appeal against the cancellation of her ballots on the morning of the second round. The one who would have seen herself as arbiter of the duel between the outgoing socialist mayor Hélène Geoffroy (49.51%) and the rebellious winner Abdelkader Lahmar (50.49%) believes she has lost possible seats on the council. She saw her votes counted as zero. In total, more than 700 invalid ballots were recorded in Vaulx during the second round, compared to around a hundred in the first. The election of the LFI mayor was decided by 124 votes.

Another appeal had been filed, again for ballots canceled at the last moment in the neighboring town of Saint-Fons. The outgoing mayor (DVG) was also defeated there by an LFI candidate. These three cities represented real war prizes for LFI, in left-wing bastions, validating its “New France” strategy. In the event of cancellation, new elections will be called. Although there are still numerous appeals, this outcome remains extremely rare.