Crisis within the Republicans: "The very existence of the party is in question"

Republicans have an identity problem in the eyes of voters, reveals our Ipsos / Sopra Steria poll for France Info and Le Parisien-Today in France.

To the point that some are wondering about the future of the party.

For Brice Teinturier, deputy director general of the Ipsos institute, there is a problem of leader and political line.

Reading this poll, doesn't LR's future seem compromised?

BRICE DYER.

The Republicans are clearly torn between La République en Marche and the National Rally.

A small majority of French people (51%) perceive them as close to LREM and 41% to RN.

But this is not just a question of perception: the LR supporters themselves are 58% to estimate that their party is close to LREM and 33% to the RN.

The fracture is also internal.

What is it based on?

On economic issues, one in two French people believe that the positions of the LR are close to those of LREM and on sovereign issues - insecurity, immigration…, an almost identical proportion that they are close to the RN.

In the end, 64% of our fellow citizens think that most LR ideas and leaders are close either to LREM or to the RN to the point that they should rally them, and only 35% that it is a useful and specific political party. compared to LREM and RN.

It is the very existence of LRs as such that is questioned.

Do LR supporters share this observation?

No, they reject it in majority (66%)!

But even among them 34% believe that there is no longer any usefulness to the existence of LRs says a lot about the identity crisis of this party.

Another difficult observation for LR: when we ask the French which party would be most able to change things for the better, they designate almost equally LREM (22%) and the RN (23%) and relegate the LR to the portion congruent (10%).

There is therefore a real concern for attractiveness.

Is there any good news for LR anyway?

There are still cements of party unity.

One of them is the opposition to the left.

It is such that nearly one in two sympathizers (48%) would approve an LR-RN alliance in the second round of the regions to prevent a victory for the left.

This is 10 points less than the desire to form an alliance with LREM to oppose a possible victory for the RN, but it remains huge.

In practice, the leaders of the Republicans assert that the dyke has not cracked and that they will in no way make an alliance with the RN.

However, this wish of their electorate puts them under pressure.

What lessons can be drawn from this survey for regional alliances?

The vast majority of LREM voters should vote easily in the second round for LR lists in the event of triangular (between LR, RN and a left list).

In this regard, in the PACA region, waiting until the evening of the 1st round to decide on a withdrawal from the list of Walkers and a LR-LREM merger would undoubtedly have made more political sense and would have made it possible to avoid the current psychodrama. … While probably ensuring the same end result.

What about the 2022 presidential election?

This confirms that there is a polarization of the political landscape which plays out largely between LREM and the RN and not only on the left-right divide.

The Republicans find themselves caught between these formations with stronger credibility and a more assertive identity.

But LREM remains fully associated with its founder.

For Republicans, it's the other way around.

The voters consider them competent at the local level, they therefore retain a strong territorial presence, but at the national level, there is doubt.

How to explain this loss of substance?

There is a problem with the leader and the line. Chirac, Sarkozy or more recently François Fillon were able to bring together the tendency which is rather liberal economically, pro-entrepreneurial, and the more conservative on sovereign and social themes. And on the line, The LRs hesitate between a liberal line and a more statist and social line, which can scare away LR voters towards Macron. For her part, Marine Le Pen has never ceased to temper her speech on these questions or on the euro, precisely to seduce that part of the Republican electorate who doubts their skills in economics.