Renaud Muselier, the outgoing president of the Paca region. – VALERY HACHE / AFP
“Mariani is a usurper, an impostor”: Eight days before the first round of regional elections, the outgoing LR president of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Renaud Muselier, toughened his tone against his RN opponent, Thierry Mariani, given in the lead by several polls. Mariani “abandoned Valréas (commune of Vaucluse, of which he was mayor from 1989 to 2005): he no longer supported the rednecks! », Denounces the candidate LR in a daily interview Nice morning appeared on Saturday, speaking about his former friend of a “huge disappointment”.
Like two sides of the same coin, Renaud Muselier and Thierry Mariani grew up within the RPR family, which became UMP then LR, leading parallel careers: local elected officials, deputies and members of the government, before splitting up. “He takes a jacket in the legislative elections, gets angry with Laurent Wauquiez (then boss of LR). And the guy, to earn a living, he goes to Marine le Pen, to the European Parliament where he votes with all the dictators! “, Denounces Renaud Muselier in the interview.
Muselier gives a layer on Mariani’s tax domicile
“And, the guy who lives in Paris, who broke up. He comes back saying to me: “I’m going to beat you!” He said, again accusing his rival of using “a false address” in the region to be able to run. “This address in Avignon, he must have slept there three times,” says the president of the Paca region. Members of LR filed on Tuesday a request to the Avignon court to have Thierry Mariani removed from the electoral lists, believing that he had no “real domicile” in the city.
For his part, the candidate RN affirms to be “perfectly in order” explaining to have “a certificate of taxes” and to be “registered with the rolls of contributions”. Renaud Muselier also attacks members of Thierry Mariani’s team, including Philippe Vardon, one of the main people responsible for his campaign. He recalls his participation in the ultra-right group “Radical Unit”, dissolved by decree in 2002 after one of its members, Maxime Brunerie, attempted to assassinate President Jacques Chirac.
Several recent polls give Thierry Mariani the lead in the first round, and even in the second round, in the event of a triangular (LR, RN, left) and even in the event of a withdrawal from the left list in the second round.