Sentenced for domestic violence in 2020, the walker Jérôme Peyrat withdrew his candidacy for the legislative elections in Dordogne, Wednesday May 18 in the afternoon. In the morning, the boss of the Republic on the march Stanislas Guérini had sparked an outcry by taking his defense on franceinfo. He had seen fit to call him“honest man”an XXL blunder which therefore sealed its fate.
In the afternoon Stanislas Guérini apologized. But his stunning initial defense illustrates the persistent blindness of much of the political world to the current era. He had argued about the lightness of the sentence imposed, 3,000 euros suspended, minimized the facts, slipped that the victim had also suffered a minor conviction. Without understanding that the only incriminating incrimination of “domestic violence” was enough to invalidate the candidacy of Jérôme Peyrat. After the #MeToo wave, such a fault leaves you speechless. Especially when the government urges the liberation of women’s speech and claims to make, once again, equality between women and men the great cause of the five-year term.
For a party, a court conviction is therefore not enough to drop a candidate. The first reflex is often gregarious. If political adversaries or the press attack, we close ranks. Partisanship undermines intellectual honesty. And then basically, it’s not the procedure that counts, it’s the nature of the accusation, and its impact on public opinion. We saw it with the Taha Bouhafs affair. His conviction for “insult on account of origin” – he had treated a police unionist of“Service Arabic” – did not pose any problems for the Insoumis. It was the accusations of sexual assault that forced them to withdraw this candidacy in the Rhône. Not without trying to make him the victim of an alleged “racist campaign”.
Remember that Taha Bouhafs is not indicted, let alone convicted, there is not even a complaint yet. But now accusations of sexual assault or violence against women are enough to disqualify a candidate because they have become intolerable in the eyes of public opinion.
Other candidates worried about justice arouse less emotion. The macronist Thierry Solère is indicted in particular for “fictitious employment” and “tax fraud”, Marine Le Pen for “embezzlement of public funds”, the rebellious Manuel Bompard was condemned for “rebellion against the judicial authority”, Eric Zemmour several times for “incitement to hatred”. A simple sample. Many other candidates of all labels are being prosecuted. Without political consequence. One more proof that it is indeed the weight of public opinion that leads a party to let go of its bad apples. Or not.