The outgoing deputy of the 1st constituency of the Somme, François Ruffin, is in a very favorable ballot for the second round of the legislative elections. On Sunday June 12, the former journalist obtained 40.09% of the votes cast, well ahead of his main competitor, the candidate of the National Rally, Nathalie Ribeiro-Billet (22.58%). The candidate invested by the presidential coalition and president of the metropolitan pole of Grand Amiénois, Pascal Rifflart, misses the qualification in the second round.
Under the banner of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), Mr. Ruffin led a campaign without really exploiting the image of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in a territory where Marine Le Pen came first in the election. presidential. “Here, the Nupes is not a campaign argument”, explained to Le Monde the candidate for a second term, at the beginning of June, saying he was in no way guaranteed to obtain a good score in the first round.
“They’ve got the money, we’ve got the people!” »
At the end of 2016, Mr. Ruffin had already succeeded in forming the beginnings of a union of the left around his candidacy. The director of the documentary Thank You Boss! was supported by La France insoumise (LFI), the French Communist Party and Europe Ecologie-Les Verts. He had been elected after a significant catch-up in votes between the two rounds: accusing 4,000 votes behind the former socialist labeled La République en Marche, Nicolas Dumont, François Ruffin had won the second with 55 97% of the vote.
At the same time close to the LFI group while regularly standing out from it, assiduous participant in the regional meetings of Mr. Mélenchon during the presidential campaign after several weeks of ambiguity as to his support for the candidate, François Ruffin has created a political space slightly offset from the rest of the left. While continuing to make documentaries – Debout les femmes! in 2021 – and to publish books – at least one a year since the beginning of his mandate – to promote his political ideas.
In the National Assembly and in the media, the former editor-in-chief of the newspaper Fakir operated his transformation into elected representative of the nation by multiplying the operations to make visible the most precarious professions – cleaning agents, industrial workers . Shortly after his election, he was sanctioned for having made a speech under the perch decked out in a jersey of Olympique Eaucourt, a football club from Eaucourt-sur-Somme (Somme). Throughout the duration of the “yellow vests” movement, he positioned himself as one of the most vocal critics of the policing strategy adopted, in particular, by the Paris Police Prefecture. This year, the slogan “They’ve got the money, we’ve got the people!” was on all his campaign trips.
