The former mayor of Perpignan who received Puigdemont and now surrenders to the far-right

BarcelonaThis has been a week of campaigning across France for the second round of Sunday's municipal elections, but not in Perpignan, where the first round decided with 50.61% of the votes that the far-right mayor Louis Aliot would revalidate his mandate. He swept to victory after the absorption of a part of the traditional right, even with the public support of former mayor Jean-Marc Pujol, his historic rival who lost in the 2020 elections and who had presided over the City Council for eleven years. In February 2020, he received former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont with all honors before holding his massive 100,000-person rally in Perpignan, to show solidarity with the exiled leader, after his municipal government had already supported those persecuted on several occasions. Pujol is a conservative from the Les Républicains party who governed with the Catalan nationalists of Unitat Catalana, but now considers that Aliot represents "the right."

"I will vote for the right-wing and popular coalition list led by Louis Aliot. [...] Today I am taking a stand in the interest of the people of Perpignan," Pujol announced on ICI Roussillon, where he added that he could have already made a deal with the far-right in 2020. If with Pujol Catalan was made official as the working language of the council and solidarity with those persecuted arrived, with Aliot Perpignan changed its coat of arms to include the French flag, the slogan "Perpignan, the Catalan" was replaced with a generic "Perpignan, the radiant," weddings in Catalan were prohibited, and the celebration of Sant Jordi was sidelined.

Pujol is a descendant of Catalans and Valencians. Born in Algeria in 1949, and also the successor of Joan Pau Alduy, a historic mayor who initiated the pact with Catalan nationalism and supported the independence of the Principality. Alduy, always against the far-right, said before the elections that he regretted having appointed Pujol as his successor.

However, Pujol's support is not surprising to some former collaborators: "I'm not surprised. Many people have gone with Aliot to have a better chance of being elected," Brice Lafontaine, who was deputy mayor with Pujol until he was unceremoniously dismissed in 2017, assures ARA. A dozen of the former mayor's collaborators have switched to Aliot, including his wife, Fatima Dahine.

"He has no interest in Catalanism even though he is not against it," maintains Lafontaine, now an independent councilor for Unitat Catalana. He recalls that when he was in the government team, he "had a lot of difficulty doing things for Catalan": "We agreed on a new immersion nursery school, he said yes, but there were always problems and after six years it wasn't done," he comments. Former councilor Jaume Pol also comments that "in Pujol's last term," the "defense of Catalanism" declined, which caused the rupture.

The reception for Puigdemont

And why did he receive Puigdemont? According to Lafontaine, "for image": "Since he had people in the government who supported Puigdemont and there was a movement in the population, it was good to have a Catalan star and receive him like this." But also for the economic factor to "have more people in Perpinyà for the shops". Pujol was also present at the reception of the former President of the Parliament Carme Forcadell and received Quim Torra with honors when he was President of the Generalitat, even wearing the yellow ribbon. Now, the former mayor is concerned about security and has a tough stance on immigration and against "anti-Semitic far-left" while the far-right is reborn and he calls it right.