Cold shower for the Republican camp.
The estimates of the results of the first round of the 2022 presidential election marked the painful end of a long way of the cross for Valérie Pécresse.
Eliminated in the first round, the right-wing candidate collapsed to 4.6% of the votes cast, behind the nationalist Éric Zemmour (7%) and the ecologist Yannick Jadot (4.9%).
Having fallen below the 5% mark, Valérie Pécresse and Les Républicains will not see their campaign costs reimbursed by the State.
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A result that Valérie Pécresse considers a "
personal and collective disappointment
".
"
I take full responsibility for my part in this defeat
," she said at the Maison de la Chimie.
“
I had to fight on two fronts: against the camp of the outgoing president and against that of the extremes, allies in the circumstances to divide and beat the Republican right
”.
"
Despite the deep differences that I hammered home throughout the campaign, I will vote Emmanuel Macron in conscience to prevent Marine Le Pen's coming to power and the chaos that would result from
it," said the Ile-de-France, to the applause of the audience of activists who came to listen to him.
A personal position that her now ex-right-hand man Éric Ciotti does not share, and that she has not accompanied by any instructions.
"
I built my political commitment against the extremes of the right as well as the left
," she continued.
“
I have always fought them with strength and consistency because I believe, like Jacques Chirac, that everything in the soul of France says no to extremism.
Marine Le Pen's project, she added, would "
lead to the bankruptcy
" of the country.
For Valérie Pécresse and the Republican camp, the challenge was twofold: not to finish below the 10% mark and not to be behind the nationalist candidate Éric Zemmour.
The failure is absolute for the candidate who was falling in the opinion polls.