It is a word that remains rare and silent.
To the chagrin of Valérie Pécresse, who fails to impose herself in the campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy has not given instructions to vote in favor of his political family and will probably not give any before the first round.
Support that the right-wing contender – gauged between 8 and 9% of voting intentions – has long awaited and which ended up hovering like a shadow over her electoral adventure.
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If the silence of the former President of the Republic cringes on the right, the French, as a whole, mostly approve of this choice.
Or rather the non-choice of Nicolas Sarkozy.
According to an Ifop poll for the
JDD
, 67% of voters consider that the ex-boss of the Republicans was right not to indicate a voting instruction.
74% of Pécssiste voters castigate the non-choice
Unsurprisingly, this decision is not well perceived among potential voters of Valérie Pécresse: 74% of them disapprove of the silence of their former champion.
Sign, perhaps, that the support of Nicolas Sarkozy could have had a positive impact on the voting intentions of his former minister.
And that right-wing supporters who have remained loyal to candidate LR blame him for his lack of loyalty to the political party he refounded in 2015.
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Conversely, supporters of the president-candidate are largely satisfied with this non-choice, often deciphered as tacit support for Emmanuel Macron.
79% of them therefore praise the behavior of Nicolas Sarkozy, who has worked on his relationship with his successor since the start of the five-year term.
A good agreement which embarrasses his camp, fearing that the current head of state will use his predecessor as a Trojan horse to attract part of the right-wing electorate to him.
If the dialogue between Valérie Pécresse and Nicolas Sarkozy has not been in good shape for several weeks, the incident of the “whistles” during the meeting on Sunday at the Porte de Versailles did not encourage any binding between the two personalities.
In private, at the beginning of February, the former President of the Republic already had a hard tooth against the one who took over the presidential torch from the right: “
Valérie is going all over the place.
Already, if, in a campaign, you manage to print one or two ideas, it's a miracle!
You have to constantly hammer.
In 2007, we talked about Sarko morning, noon and night.
But there, who is talking about Valérie Pécresse?
It is non-existent”.