“One hedge after another.
This is what Christian Jacob has been hammering for months when asked about the presidential election.
And that the boss of the Republican party no longer has the right to use.
Because the regional have passed, and here is the last hurdle before 2022 - the highest perhaps - with the choice of the right candidate for 2022.
“Let's form a great team!
"Xavier Bertrand launched Monday to his counterparts Valérie Pécresse and Laurent Wauquiez, both winners like him on Sunday and eyeing 2022." Our responsibility is to get together, to play together ", also commented the president (ex-LR ) of Ile-de-France.
All agree to team up… and take the captain's armband!
But how to choose this future leader?
In mid-June, Christian Jacob laid some foundations… but they do not solve anything.
VIDEO.
Xavier Bertrand: "This result gives me the strength to meet all French people"
Two large polls will be carried out by October to initiate the start of a tie-break between several candidates (which ones? Mystery): "Who brings together the most to the right?"
"," Who most embodies the authority of the state ", etc.
Fierce opponent to any type of primary, Christian Jacob dreams that this is enough to identify a "natural candidate" who is imposed on others, without going through a competition that generates divisions.
"The Baroin sect will appeal to Baroin," sighs an influential LR elected.
Will the mayor of Troyes respond to the insistent calls from the feet of his supplicants?
Nothing is less sure.
A candidate not only labeled LR
At the same time, Jacob gave vacation homework to Jean Léonetti. The mayor (LR) of Antibes has all summer to stake on a "tie-breaker" between the aspiring candidates. He must hand in his copy at the start of the school year, activists will be consulted on September 30. "I am a defender of a democratic and non-polling method of selection," he confides to us. Opinion shared by the boss (LR) of the Senate, Gérard Larcher. “An investigation is useful in clarifying the situation, like the Holy Spirit. But to enlighten is not to decide. Electronic voting, sponsorships, opening of candidatures to the family of the right and the center: several avenues are on the table. The idea is to come up with a candidate who would not only be labeled LR.
"We need an LR candidate because LR is the flagship of political life," nevertheless defends MEP Nadine Morano. Several LR elected officials could be candidates, from Bruno Retailleau to Laurent Wauquiez, from Michel Barnier to the mayor of Cannes David Lisnard. "Being LR is better," said François Baroin last week in Le Figaro. Xavier Bertrand and Valérie Pécresse will appreciate… even if the mayor of Troyes makes the difference between “those who have turned their backs on us and those who shot us behind the back”. Understand: better still the two regional presidents who left the party than Édouard Philippe who joined Macron.
But Xavier Bertrand, the best placed in the polls (around 16% in a first virtual round) and already declared candidate for 2022, will he bow to a primary?
“He will be the right-wing presidential candidate, period!
»Asserts one of his close friends.
“He is aware that if there are two candidates, he cannot win.
He is a man who knows how to take responsibility, ”analyzes Gérard Larcher, who wants to convince him to participate.
"Who wins better than me on the right?"
Who wants it more than me?
Nobody !
Bertrand hammers in private, hoping to force the hand of his former comrades.
Republicans hope to have a candidate by mid-November.
The standoff begins.
Xavier Bertrand, a step ahead
After his comfortable re-election on Sunday, Xavier Bertrand hastened to declare on Sunday evening: "This result therefore gives me the strength to meet the French".
Calendar.
Xavier Bertrand made a series of trips from Monday, including one in the form of face-to-face with Emmanuel Macron.
In order to mark the spirits a little more in this new sequence, an interview with 20 hours of TF1 is in the pipes and could intervene this Tuesday, or Wednesday.
A meeting “in physical” with right-wing parliamentarians was also planned at the beginning of the week, in order to maintain his network of elected “friends”, and to continue his operation to seduce The Republicans, which he left at the end of 2017. Then, he must embark on a "Tour de France" all summer, to travel through popular France, convinced that "the yellow vests are still there", continues the same.
PODCAST> Xavier Bertrand, itinerary of a former “small insurer” who became a candidate for the Élysée
Strengths.
Officially a presidential candidate since the end of March, he left before the others on the right, and remains one step ahead of his potential competitors in the polls (around 16-18%). Which makes him virtually appear as the best placed to thwart the Macron-Le Pen match. "Now the presidential election is a three-way match," he argued in Les Echos on Monday, hoping to be the "useful vote" to prevent a repeat of 2017. Then, his determination to go to the presidential election is praised by his support as by observers within LR. "We still want a candidate who is terribly longing for it ..." sums up a deputy.
Weaknesses.
He kept very strong enmities on the right, a legacy of the Sarkozy years, to the point of sometimes provoking an "all but Bertrand" in LR.
The leadership of the party, in the hands of the Chiraquians, does not carry it in its heart either.
"Nobody can win better than him today but I know a lot that can make him lose", summarizes the entourage of an aspiring candidate.
They will be several to refuse to give him the free way, to force him to participate in a primary, which so far he refuses.
Valérie Pécresse, with soft steps
"For me, everything starts today," said Valérie Pécresse Monday, guest at Jean-Jacques Bourdin.
The message is clear: it will now also be necessary to count on it.
Calendar.
Adept of "sequences", Valérie Pécresse finally opened that of the presidential election Monday morning, saying she wanted "to reflect this summer" on a possible, in fact probable, Elyos candidacy. While she had been dodging the subject until then, including with those close to her, some of her friends urged her to speed up. His traditional political comeback, perhaps in Brive-la-Gaillarde, could be an opportunity to get started. But before that, the "priority" for Valérie Pécresse is to "implement very quickly" the main commitments of her Ile-de-France campaign, such as the establishment of a regional mutual, aid for the purchase of a clean vehicle. ... At the same time, Valérie Pécresse will be involved with LR, which she left in June 2019,to ensure the establishment of a tie-breaker process to which each candidate must submit.
VIDEO.
Regional 2021: "We have a great responsibility and I will play my part in it", assures Pécresse
Strengths.
Already, his entourage suggests that the victory of the Ile-de-France is the most significant among the presidential right-wingers because in Ile-de-France, "the fight was the most difficult".
"Valérie Pécresse is the only one who faced three adversaries at the same time", one underlines, in reference to LREM, until then strong in the capital region, at the RN and on the left.
One of Valérie Pécresse's strengths in the coming tug-of-war is also not to count many enemies on the right, unlike Xavier Bertrand or Laurent Wauquiez.
It can therefore hope to be a fallback candidacy for a certain number, in particular among the sarkozysts.
Weaknesses.
Does Valérie Pécresse really want the job?
The question is often asked on the right.
In private, she puts this question on the account of "machismo", "the thing best shared on the right."
However, some people wonder about its space.
“She now defends classic right-wing positions.
But not sure that the French saw it.
In their eyes, it remains Macron-compatible, ”observes the lieutenant of one of his rivals.
Laurent Wauquiez, the hard line
To the national ambitions clearly displayed by Xavier Bertrand, Laurent Wauquiez will for the moment prefer the regional route. “This is not a speed race where barely elected, we move on. The respect I owe constituents is to work. Elected officials are sometimes good at talking about political politics, but too absent on the ground, ”commented the president of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region on Monday morning.
Calendar.
No national mornings planned soon, but an interview with France 3 Auvergne to strengthen its posture of "entrenched elected official".
This summer, he will plow his territory to develop his program.
Even if it means making them national subjects.
From this Monday morning, for example, he went to the video surveillance center at Part-Dieu station in Lyon to talk about security and facial recognition.
Also on the menu this week is a relocation sequence in Auvergne.
Read alsoLaurent Wauquiez, “How do you think about experimenting with facial recognition when its extended use is prohibited in France?”
Strengths.
He is the best elected outgoing president on the right (55.17%), leading in all the departments of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. His region, the most populous and the most prosperous outside Ile-de-France, will be the rear base of his campaign to win on the right with a view to 2022. “Above 1,000 meters, there is no many municipalities where we are not in the lead ”, he congratulated himself. A satisfaction for those who want to appear as the candidate of the middle classes sometimes far from metropolises. "Its result is the concretization of the work carried out for six years, of a candidacy based on clear values and the seriousness of a territorial anchoring", declared Sunday the senator LR François-Noël Buffet. The themes of the time - security, immigration, health, relocation - could also play in his favor.
Weaknesses.
“Its weakness is its relationship with the French. 2022 is too early for him, ”confides a party executive. "His insincerity still perspires," said another. Wauquiez is judged “too far to the right of LR's center of gravity”. His precocious ambition, then his 2019 failure as president of the Republicans have left their mark. "Blame it on a relationship that is sometimes too brutal with people, even if it can also be charming", confides this executive. The lack of support within his party could also severely handicap him.
