“People wanted to sanction the president, but it’s not a vote for accession, it’s a vote to protest,” declared the National Rally candidate, who has taken the lead in most overseas departments, on Monday 25th.
franceinfo: What is your reaction to Marine Le Pen’s successes abroad?
Victorin Lurel: We expected it. A few days before the second round, I had Emmanuel Macron tell him there was going to be disaster in the overseas territories. For five years there has been a real misunderstanding between the power and the overseas territories. There is a sense of numbness and some have spoken of abuse. Explain that people in France don’t understand this. There is a feeling that you always ask for more. People wanted to sanction the President. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but we didn’t feel like we were being heard. The overseas territories seem minimized, never mentioned, never considered. So it was a predictable result, it’s not a membership vote for Marine Le Pen, it wasn’t a membership vote for Mélenchon in the first round, it’s a rejection vote in protest, protester.
You say you alerted Emmanuel Macron. Do you think he’s denying it?
The President is convinced that his direction is the right one. He’s a polite, cultured man who listens, but he has his philosophy, his vision of the world. He feels the Overseas should take better care of themselves, we can share that. But to make accounting policy from there and say we’ve given enough is different. We were called archaic. All of that hurt.
Have the Chlordecon and Covid related issues had an impact?
We talked about Chlordecone, Covid, the social crisis, it’s receding, it’s not just Emmanuel Macron who is to blame, it’s the style, the way of dealing with it. I’ve said it to all the ministers, to the various ministers overseas: ‘You’re going to get a backlash.’ I’ve heard, ‘We don’t need that to get re-elected.’ We must learn serious and important reorientation lessons to deal with these problems. I asked the President to provide people, businesses and communities with sustainable means to solve structural problems.