Regretting the "right-wing" of the party, Jean-Luc Moudenc, mayor of Toulouse announced on Monday that he was leaving Les Républicains.
He stressed that he did not intend to join another movement.
"I am withdrawing without controversy," assured Agence France Presse Jean-Luc Moudenc, confirming information published by the newspaper Le Figaro.
In this interview, the mayor of the fourth largest city in France, where the municipal majority brings together Walkers and Republicans, believes that his political formation "is at an impasse".
“The party has curled up on a very right-wing position.
(…) This pushed many center-right voters to join the Macronist camp and this in no way prevented the dynamics of the far-right vote, ”he analyzes.
While welcoming the qualities of the three candidates for the presidency of the party - Éric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié -, the Toulouse elected representative considers that they "have in common that they want Les Républicains to remain alone, without concluding an alliance.
I consider that this strategy of isolation leads to nothing”.
An "old reflection" materialized by the election at LR
For him, in the name of the national interest, the right must "dialogue with the majority, otherwise we will witness a permanent blockage of our institutions, with 49.3, a permanent rat race, even the dissolution of the Assembly ".
“The three candidates only want to anchor the movement on the right.
Whatever the future president of the Republicans, the center is therefore abandoned, ”said Jean-Luc Moudenc, who defines himself as a centrist Christian Democrat and European.
Jean-Luc Moudenc, 62, re-elected in 2020, was successively a member of the Center of Social Democrats, of the UMP, then of the Republicans.
His decision, he says, is the fruit of "old reflection", and the election to Les Républicains "gives him the opportunity to concretize it".
He does not wish to join Horizons, but sees in Édouard Philippe a presidential candidate, if he manages "to recompose a political space bringing together the right and the center, today split".