In June 2020, around 60 % of the inhabitants of Trappes in the department of Yvelines did not turn up for the second round of local elections. By next autumn, the recalcitrant voters should be given a second chance. The State Council has just cancelled the last elections, the right-wing opposition announced on social networks. The reason: Ali Rabeh (Génération.s), who was elected in 2020 with 40 % of the vote, had been accused of fraud for several months. During the election campaign, he would have distributed thousands of masks with his effigy against Covid via the association “Coeur de Trappes”, of which he is the president. In addition to the masks, the candidate of the Hamonist initiative had also offered educational packages to the children of Trappes. All this was done at the expense of his association, without adding these expenses to the campaign costs. “An absolute mix of genres”, a public rapporteur of the Council of State had already stated last July, as Les Echos reported, and which will therefore cost Ali Rabeh his job as mayor.
“It’s time to offer Trappes a real alternative to turn the tide of this sectarian, clientelist and anti-republican administration,” commented on Twitter Othman Nasrou, LR candidate who lost in the municipal elections, vice-president of the Ile-de-France region and close to Valerie Pécresse. The centre-right politician believes that “Trappes deserves better” than Ali Rabeh, and looks forward to trying his luck again in a few months – he lost in 2020 by only 3%. In addition to these administrative setbacks, Ali Rabeh also made news in February 2021. At the time, a major national controversy had erupted around the town of Trappes, which was accused by a local philosophy professor of allowing itself to be hijacked by “Islamists”. Didier Lemaire, the university teacher in question, claimed to have been threatened with death by Islamists and spoke of living under partial police protection. The recently elected mayor of the town of Trappendorf had then vigorously defended his municipality and attacked the philosophy professor in an outrageous manner. In Marianne’s columns in February, Didier Lemaire told all his resentment against the politician: “He is a manipulator, he has slandered me. And today he allows himself to violate the rules of the Republic by invading schools to spread his propaganda…”. Clearly, Ali Rabeh’s very short tenure did not go smoothly.