Too bad for the epidemic. The poster seemed too good to them. Rachida Dati, ex-star long decried from the right returned to the limelight in the light of a municipal campaign more uncertain than expected. With "guest star", the last icon left on the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, returned for an evening where he celebrated his conquest of the Elysee in 2007.
"Nice to see you've braved the Coronavirus!" "Laughs the president of the Republicans Christian Jacob at the podium to open the evening. Some 900 right-wing activists and sympathizers have settled in the tired yellow seats in the Gaveau hall, in the very opulent 8th arrondissement.
While its competitors - Anne Hidalgo and David Belliard - have chosen to cancel their respective meetings to avoid the risk of contagion, the Dati team made a point of maintaining its own, by lowering the number of guests just below the threshold of 1000 people. "Irresponsible" according to his opponents, courageous for his supporters. "It's Rachida ..." smiles a cadre from the right. "We have balls!" Dares a young activist.
In seven minutes, Sarko praises Dati's courage and loyalty
"It was important that we find ourselves," judge Gérard Larcher, leaning on the stage, politely refusing a handshake to comply with the health guidelines. Does he only believe in it? "Something is happening ..." is content to slip the president of the Senate, playing the game of the unity of a political family, which a few months ago, was torn on the choice of Dati to lead the battle from Paris.
But here it is: the direct adversary, LREM, who had brought the right to the ground in the presidential and European elections is experiencing an erratic campaign. And the right finds colors with the mayor of the 7th in figurehead. Many LR executives and allies also made the trip.
A giant screen installed on stage broadcasts two video clips, to tell the legend of "the child of low-cost housing" of Chalon-sur-Saône. Dressed in a black jumpsuit, she arrives on stage accompanied by the former President, in a sober costume. He will praise, for seven minutes, his courage and loyalty - "an extremely rare disease" in politics - and his "inexhaustible energy," and that, he emphasizes, is still your Sarkozy side! A "sign" of support that she had been hoping for months to boost her campaign, even if Nicolas Sarkozy will refuse to go into too political remarks.
The hardest words for Buzyn
"We are carried by a wave that rises day by day", launches in turn the mayor (LR) of the 7th arrondissement, that the polls give shoulder to shoulder with the outgoing mayor (PS) Anne Hidalgo, and always some points in front of the Walker Agnès Buzyn. It is also for the former Minister of Health that Dati will have the harshest words, never pronouncing his name but evoking his "incompetence", "the emptiness" represented by his candidacy, "appointed to stop a hole and who seems to wonder every day what she came to do in this galley ”. Atmosphere.
And to hope to be able to create the surprise, where the Parisian right has failed for twenty years. "It is up to us to convince that change can be us," concludes Dati, who hopes that the polls on Sunday March 15 will designate her as the best placed to beat Anne Hidalgo in the second round.
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End of the meeting, all the laying of the right are invited on stage for the family photo. Rachida Dati reaches out several times to Nicolas Sarkozy, who politely refuses to show off more. If he has agreed to come and support his former Keeper of the Seals, the last President of the right is trying to distance himself, apparently, from politics. His own virus.
