There are three days left before the official campaign closes for the second round of the legislative elections, on Sunday, July 7. There were more than 4,000 candidates before the first round. There will still be a little over 1,100 on Sunday. They had until Tuesday 6 p.m. to submit their candidacy to the prefecture to try to join the 76 deputies elected last Sunday. A few hundred triangular races will take place, compared to 311 possible at the exit of the polls last Sunday, after the first round.
Several National Rally candidates who qualified for the second round are making headlines for their controversial remarks. Thus, in total, Release lists nearly 70 far-right candidates singled out by the press who crossed the threshold of the first round. More than half, or 37, not only qualified but also won the election in the first round (8) or appear to be favorites for the second round (29). A non-exhaustive overview of these candidates who slipped up.
Ludivine Daoudi and the Nazi cap
RN candidate Ludivine Daoudi from the 1st constituency of Calvados has decided to withdraw her candidacy following the publication of a photo of her wearing a Nazi army cap, Philippe Chapron, RN departmental delegate, said on France Bleu on Tuesday.
“The application will be withdrawn today […]she does not deny it, she took this photo several years ago,” declared Philippe Chapron on France bleu, describing this photo as “in bad taste”. Ludivine Daoudi came third in the first round with 19.95% of the vote, behind the current mayor of Caen (“on leave” from the Republicans), various right-wing candidate, Joël Bruneau (43%) and the NFP candidate Emma Fourreau (34%), who published this photo on an X account.
“The withdrawal of this candidacy is a great victory, several sources who knew Ludivine Daoudi, including a former friend, sent us this Facebook screenshot, her social networks have since been cleaned up,” Emma Fourreau told AFP.
The identity of the person in the photo was authenticated by Libération as being Ludivine Daoudi. The RN candidate is wearing a Luftwaffe (Third Reich air force) non-commissioned officer’s cap with a swastika. “We see that the demonization of the National Rally since its creation by a former Waffen SS has not taken place, there is a historical continuity, despite their ties in the Assembly, it is still a racist party with references to Nazi Germany,” added Emma Fourreau.
Annie Bell, a candidate convicted of “kidnapping with a weapon”
Annie Bell, a septuagenarian who is running for the National Rally (RN) in Mayenne and qualified for the second round of the legislative elections, was sentenced to prison in 1995 for an armed hostage-taking in a town hall in the department, the local press revealed on Tuesday. Ouest-France, whose press clipping reporting the hostage-taking was circulating on social networks on Tuesday, went digging through its archives to unearth this surprising affair, also covered at the time by AFP.
On January 5, 1995, Annie Bell and her husband held the secretary general of the Ernée (Mayenne) town hall hostage for three hours at gunpoint. The woman, who at the time bore her husband’s name, Jaccoud, locked herself in the secretary general’s office “after a scuffle.” The woman even fired a shot, which did not cause any casualties, the police told AFP. Annie Bell’s husband, a leatherworker with “very serious financial problems,” was also present. It took the intervention of the chief of the Mayenne police to obtain the hostage’s release, after three hours of discussions.
According to West France And the Mayenne Courier, The couple had been charged with “wielding kidnapping” and placed in pre-trial detention. Annie Bell had been tried in June 1995 and sentenced to ten months in prison with a 26-month suspended sentence, the newspaper reported, which had “found no trace of a possible appeal” in its archives. The RN candidate, aged 76, told West France that she did not wish to comment on this matter “before the end of the elections” while the departmental delegate of her party, Jean-Michel Cadenas, responded: “There is no criminal record, therefore no case.”
Marie-Christine Sorin asks Prisca Thevenot “to return to her island”
Release found messages from Marie-Christine Sorin on the social network X. The RN candidate for the 1st constituency of the Hautes-Pyrénées – who came out on top in the first round – explained, for example, that “not all civilizations are equal” and that some “have just remained below bestiality in the chain of evolution.”
She also regretted not being able to tell government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot “to return to her island [NDLR : elle est née à Strasbourg mais ses parents sont d’origine mauricienne] without being accused of racism.”
Monique Griseti asks singer Gims “to go back to where he came from”
As spotted ReleaseMonique Griseti, who came out on top in the 1st constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône (45.54%), published a message on Facebook in January 2022 stating about the singer Gims: “Let him go back to where he came from, let him bring his whole tribe with him. Let him go milk the goat, that will give us a vacation.”
For Maïtey Pouget, “we are starting to be invaded”
Last Friday, on LCI, Maïtey Pouget, RN candidate for the 1st constituency of Corrèze who qualified for the second round, also made headlines. Asked about the Brive-la-Gaillarde market, the candidate estimated that “we are starting to be invaded, in the cities”. When the journalist pointed out to her that her observation was not obvious on the Brive-la-Gaillarde market, the far-right candidate, opposed to François Hollande and an LR candidate in the second round, replied: “No, but they are not there. At this time, they are sleeping. I see them in town, I come across them much more in the afternoon than early in the morning. They have no activity, most of them are without activity.”
Jocelyn Liban’s conspiratorial tendencies
Another candidate for the National Assembly of Calvados has been singled out for racist and conspiratorial posts. This is Josseline Liban, who qualified for the second round of the election against Arthur Delaporte, a PS candidate nominated by the New Popular Front. On Tuesday, racist and conspiratorial posts by this discreet 69-year-old retiree were exhumed on the social network X by Arthur Delaporte.
On Facebook, Josseline Liban, who goes by the name “Jocelyne Liban-Gesrzkourez,” shared a short video in January 2016 showing men working at the foot of a building before it collapsed, accompanied by the comment: “Mouloud at work.” In February 2016, she reposted a montage of a black man and a dog. The first said: “I am French,” and the canine said: “And I am a cat.”
On her Facebook account, Josseline Liban also stands out for her penchant for conspiracy content, as noted StreetPress. She relays videos of the antivax YouTuber and raw food guru, Thierry Casasnovas. Followed by 1.6 million subscribers, the latter has been under investigation since 2023 for “breach of trust, forgery and use of forgery, illegal practice of medicine, illegal practice of pharmacy, deceptive commercial practices, abuse of corporate assets, money laundering and abuse of weakness”, after numerous reports to the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes).