Like an air of deja vu… This year again, the Republicans and the ex-LR personalities will make their comeback in dispersed order. All the “sensibilities” of the right have decided to organize their own meeting. From this weekend, several LR tenors - Gérard Larcher, Bruno Retailleau, Rachida Dati, etc. - will meet in La Baule around the new mayor of the city, Franck Louvrier. At the same time, Valérie Pécresse will gather the support of her party, Libres !, in Essonne while Laurent Wauquiez will prepare, as every year, to climb to the top of Mont Mézenc, in the Massif Central."It is true that I wanted a return to school that was as unified as possible, but because of the health crisis we were forced to postpone our scheduled meeting in Nîmes by one week, which ended up being superimposed on the regional meetings" , recognized in our columns, Friday, the boss of LR, Christian Jacob. Twenty months before the presidential election, everyone is advancing their pawns and making known their ambition for 2022. Xavier Bertrand “is preparing for it”, Bruno Retailleau wants to “assert (his) convictions” when Valérie Pécresse is “ready”.
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While fewer and fewer elected officials believe in a candidacy from François Baroin, all are now reflecting on the process of appointing a candidate and its timetable . “The parties are now too weak to carry a candidate on their own. This is why our candidate must be legitimized by a peaceful selection process ” , indicated Bruno Retailleau, last week, in an interview with the regional daily, Latest news from Alsace .
“The primary is a losing machine , ” warns MEP Agnès Evren. “To have lived it closely, these are only ego and divisions. We are in the process of engaging the losing machine at the very moment when it is necessary to bring together, ” she warns. If the primary continues to divide on the right, more and more elected officials nevertheless take over the “tie-breaker system” proposed by Gérard Larcher. Even the management of LR, hitherto reluctant. “I do not despair of having a candidate who wins naturally. If this is not the case before the summer, then we will have to think collectively about a tie-breaker system , ” admitted Christian Jacob in Le Figaro .
We still have to manage to define it. Do we need a points system? A list with names to cross out? With one or two turns? And how can you be sure to choose the best candidate?
I consider Nicolas Sarkozy to be an asset for the right. He is a reference for us
Christian jacobFaced with these uncertainties and the fear of a new presidential defeat which would be fatal for the Republicans, all eyes are on Nicolas Sarkozy, whose book Le Temps des tempêtes promises to be a successful edition. Would he be the right candidate ?, many elected officials wonder. “He wishes it was possible. Because for a politician like him, to stay alive, it must remain possible , wants to believe a former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy. "If Nicolas Sarkozy were to use this scenario of the return, we need circumstances: that Macron is in great difficulty and that on the right there is no one or too many people, which amounts to the same thing!" , he analyzes.
The former president denies any desire to return or political calculation. “I am not in the countryside. I don't miss it! Nobody believes me, but it's the truth, ”he assured Le Figaro in mid-July . His dedications would only be a desire to better meet his readers and defend his book.
After several dates in the south of France, the former president made an appointment Monday in Paris for a new signing session. To the point that some LR elected officials consider his shadow a bit bulky, on the right, to allow a new leader to emerge. "No , " Christian Jacob refuted in our columns on Friday. I consider Nicolas Sarkozy to be an asset for the right. He is a reference for us ” , indicated the boss of LR. "He is both a reference and a hope," Eric Ciotti even assured a few days earlier.
Pandora's box is open!
An elected LR"The space for the right depends on the positioning that Emmanuel Macron will choose" , worries a tenor however. “If he's on a space, he blocks it, and if he's not, he opens it. We still need to have this answer, ”he adds, before appointing the one who will defend the colors of the right in 2022. “ Pandora's box is open! ” , alarmed an elected LR.
However, a few parallels emerge, both in substance and in form. While she had left Les Républicains in June 2019 to denounce the political line, Valérie Pécresse joined the political re-entry of LR, at Port-Marly, on September 4 and 5, to pronounce the word of introduction. If Xavier Bertrand has not planned to go there, the president of Hauts-de-France sees his very critical positions with regard to government policy, shared by all LR elected officials. As possible convergences before the next presidential election?
