A keen observer of French political life and regular contributor to the FigaroVox, Maxime Tandonnet has notably published André Tardieu. The misunderstood (Perrin, 2019).
The exercise of the primaries (open or closed) always lends itself to the most breathtaking surprises ... Those of 2021 were no exception to the rule. The forecasts gave either Xavier Bertrand or Michel Barnier. However, the members finally leaned in favor of Valérie Pécresse. They freed themselves from the law of the polls which was to push them to retain Xavier Bertrand, widely given as the best placed for the presidential elections.
This unforeseen outcome escapes rational explanation. During the televised debates, no candidate really gained an obvious ascendancy over the others. We can always estimate that Valérie Pécresse benefited from her speech combining economic liberalism and firmness on the regal (on the model of the mythical Fillon program of 2017). Nevertheless: the result of the first round, decisive, was extremely tight. Four candidates stood in a handkerchief. "We must leave something to Providence!" Lamartine declared about the presidential election of 1848. Such could be the motto of these right-wing primaries. Precisely, has Providence smiled on Republicans?
A priori, nothing is less obvious. Until now, national polls did not plead in favor of Valérie Pécresse. Some activists still reproach him for having resigned from LR, before returning there. In addition, the excellent performance of Eric Ciotti underlines the risk of seeing part of the electorate most to the right of LR turning to other horizons ...
However, there is no lack of reasons to hope in the lucky star of Valérie Pécresse.
The flow of adhesions to LR (70,000) can be interpreted as a sign of the start of a dynamic.
The good general performance of these primaries is another favorable sign as is the irreproachable attitude of the losers towards the winner.
The climate of respect which characterized the televised debates broke with a tradition of hateful rivalries which was at the source of all the defeats on the right.
Their progress may have given an image of collective will, of increasing power - not of an alleged solitary savior - but of a united team determined to govern the country.
Pragmatic, hard worker, she is not the style to deceive the French with beautiful ethereal formulas by promising them, for example, a "new world".
Irreproachable in terms of integrity, Valérie Pécresse offers a profile likely to unite beyond the LR right: she has proven herself as Minister of Universities and for six years at the head of the first region of France in number of 'residents. Pragmatic, hard worker, she is not the style to deceive the French with beautiful ethereal formulas by promising them, for example, a "new world" or a "transformation of France". Faced with the vertiginous explosion of public debt - which our children will have to repay - she proposes to manage the country as a "good mother" (as we speak of "good father" management ...) and elsewhere, insists on a return to a family policy. This discourse against the current hyper-narcissism can appeal to a large category of public opinion.
With a simple and respectful style, no one imagines him treating the French as "toothless" or "refractory Gauls". Contrary to a false rumor, it has never varied in its criticism of the five-year term of Emmanuel Macron and the opportunist rallies to the latter. Valérie Pécresse has never denied a right-wing political culture either: no one can imagine her qualifying colonization as a "crime against humanity", calling for the "deconstruction" of the history of France or using the formula "male White".
It offers the French a realistic vision of the country, favoring authentic action (at the cost of the truth concerning the obstacles and difficulties), over illusory posturing and blows of communication. It can thus convince of its ability to put its voluntarism at the service of firmness in matters of security and immigration without backing down from political correctness, as it has repeatedly proven at the head of the Ile-de-France region. .
Like her mentors, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, Valérie Pécresse has largely demonstrated in the past an essential training force in the electoral contest: in 2015, she was not a favorite, far from it, when she won the Ile-de-France region. Finally, any presidential campaign has its share of emotional or sensationalism and shimmers with the national novel. France is a country of more than 1500 years which, in particular because of the Salic law reserving the accession to the throne to the male heirs and of its political tradition, never had a female head of state. Never in fifteen centuries ... Seventy-eight years and three days after the ordinance of General de Gaulle granting the right to vote to women (April 21, 1944 - April 24, 2022), the accession to the Elysee of a woman,having largely proven qualities expected of a Head of State, would be, in addition to everything else, a symbolic event of the first order ...
