PRESIDENT LR. Three candidates are in the running to become president of the Republicans but among party supporters, Eric Ciotti seems to be the favorite. Like Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié, the deputy must defend his project during a single debate.
[Mise à jour le 21 novembre à 12h41] Who will be Christian Jacob’s successor? Three candidates hope to be elected to the presidency of the Republicans but between Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié, the first seems to be the best off in the race. A possible advance that he owes to his greater notoriety than those of his rivals and to his strong popularity of 60% in the ranks of LR sympathizers, according to an Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey carried out in early November for Le Figaro. But nothing is played for the elected representative of the Riviera because opposite him Bruno Retailleau also believes in his chances of victory, it is moreover between the two men that the match could be the tightest because the Vendée senator counts in his party cadre camp. Finally, Aurélien Pradié represents the third way that carried by the young guard of LR. If each candidate for the LR presidency advances with his public, the three men also defend different projects for the future of the party of the traditional right even if none envisages a rapprochement of the Republicans with the presidential party. Whoever the new LR president is, the party created in 2016 by Nicolas Sarkozy should therefore experience a political shift and was moving away from the Sarkozyte vision, at least from the horizons of the former president favorable to a rapprochement with the macronie.
Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien will have a single opportunity to convince LR supporters, the only ones who can vote in the election of the party president on December 4 and 11, 2022, that their project is the right one for the survival of the political formation: this Friday, November 21 during the debate organized by LCI and presented by Ruth Elkrief and Adrien Gindre. The three contenders for the LR presidency will debate from 8:30 p.m. The moment will be crucial for the party which, despite setbacks, including the crushing defeat of Valérie Pécresse in the 2022 presidential election, retains a significant weight in the political balance by playing the pivots in the National Assembly in the absence of an absolute majority.
What do the polls say about the election of President LR?
Rare are the polls which were interested in the election of the president of the Republicans but on November 3 the Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey carried out for Le Figaro granted the place of favorite to Eric Ciotti thanks to the good opinion of 60% of supporters of the right of the elected. A notoriety acquired after the numerous positions taken by the elected representative of the Riviera on national political subjects when Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié are best known in political spheres. But Eric Ciotti is also the candidate who records the most opposition or at least a bad image with a quarter of supporters of the right. The Vendée senator and the Lot deputy therefore have a lot to play for and above all to gain during the sole debate to convince the militants to elect them as party leaders.
In addition to the debate, the election of President LR is also a matter of communication and Eric Ciotti did not appreciate when his place as favorite was questioned in a consultation which he described as a “false poll” communicated communicated to all LR members in the party newsletter. The elected representative of Nice even seized the High Authority to close the case. The castigated document is a consultation led by Oser la France, a movement founded by one of Bruno Retailleau’s spokespersons, and which grants the senator 46% of the votes in the first round of the LR election and a victory in the second against Eric Ciotti. . However, the Retailleau camp ensures that it never presented the consultation as a poll, adding that in September when a similar study gave the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes in the lead, it had not been reported. Note that the party’s newsletter centralizes the communication of the three candidates for the LR presidency for the sake of equality but “only relays and does not control what the candidates wish to communicate”, reports France 3 Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur.
Potential candidates for the election have until November 3, 2022 at 3 p.m. at the latest to file the required sponsorships with the High Authority, which will publish the official list of candidates at a later date. After a campaign that could last for a month, the first round of the congress will be held from December 3, 2022 at 6 p.m. to Sunday December 4, 2022 at 6 p.m. If none of the candidates has obtained the majority of the votes cast during this first vote, a second round will be organized on December 10 and 11, 2022, at the same times.
If the October 2019 congress had taken place without surprises, Christian Jacob, the widely favored candidate, having won in the first round with more than 62% of the votes, this time, the suspense should be there. Especially since the future president may have a presidential future: “We must definitely get rid of the primaries, which I have also taken out of the LR statutes, and my successor must be intended to be a candidate in 2027”, explained Christian Jacob during an interview available on the Republicans website.
As during the primary organized to designate the party’s candidate for the presidential election, only up-to-date members will be able to take part in the vote to elect the future president of the Republicans. But no need to take his card now. Indeed, the rules of the election indicate that only people with up-to-date contributions 30 days before the ballot, i.e. on November 3, 2022, will be able to participate in this congress. Thus, 91,110 people will be able to vote. In 2019, when Christian Jacob was elected, 131,514 people were registered, but only 62,401 voted. In 2017, when Laurent Wauquiez won, 234,556 voters were eligible to vote and 98,543 participated.
Aurélien Pradié, officially candidate for the LR presidency
The deputy for Lot has long cast doubt on his candidacy for the election of President LR. But the ambition of this close friend of Christian Jacob and face of the new generation of the party was no secret and if the parliamentarian said he was “thinking about it seriously”, he above all formalized his candidacy in an interview with the Figaro September 12. Aurélien Pradié, who claims to be from the social wing of law training, has indicated that he wants to “rebuild the popular right” which is aimed at everyone and constitutes an alternative to Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau. The elected official is known in the republican sphere, secretary general of the party since 2019 and very active on the ground in Occitania where he has been politically invested for many years.
Bruno Retailleau, from the president of the LR group in the Senate to the presidency of the party?
The senator who leads the group of Republicans in the upper house of Parliament, Bruno Retailleau, sees himself taking the reins of the party of the traditional right. It’s September 2 also in the columns of the Figaro that the heavyweight of the party has announced that he is a candidate for the LR presidency, a choice which he explains by the absence of Laurent Wauquiez: “Yes, I will be a candidate for the presidency of the Republicans. Laurent Wauquiez had all the qualities to preside over our movement but, in his absence, many have asked me to introduce myself. I am not lacking in responsibility, but I am not one to shirk myself.”
Eric Ciotti, one of the first candidates for the presidency of the LR party
The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, already a candidate for the LR primary in December 2021 with a view to the presidential election, is trying his luck again by claiming this time for the presidency of the party. The man, figure of the right-wing wing of the right-wing formation, has been ensuring since the summer that he is “very determined” to take part in the reconstruction of the party as he confided to the JDD on July 24… before confirming his candidacy two days later in Nice morning. In July, the parliamentarian said he had already started “work to offer both a large gathering and a modernized political offer, in line with the expectations of the French”. “To straighten out our country, he added in the Nice daily, there is only one way: that of reform”. With the date of December 3 in the viewfinder, he intends more than ever to count in the future of a party that he has never left despite outside calls (in particular those of Eric Zemmour).
The first round of the election to the Presidency of the Republicans will therefore take place this winter, and will be preceded by a campaign which will begin in the fall, as specified by Annie Genevard, the interim president. Occupying the position since the departure of Christian Jacob in June, the latter will retire to make way for the future designated by the vote of the party congress. Yes, but who? Laurent Wauquiez, the great favorite of the barons of the party, quickly withdrew in favor of other ambitions, more… Presidential. In a letter published on his social networks, Laurent Wauquiez, the former minister and current president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region announced that he would give up running for the LR presidency, the election of which will take place in the fall. Instead, he intends to “devote all his energy” to the “refoundation” that he thinks essential to the country. Saying he is determined to “go beyond the questions of apparatus”, he says he wants to be at the “appointment of the great democratic choice of 2027”, enough to suggest that he aspires to the highest presidency, that of the Republic.
The resignation of Christian Jacob made some waves. Former minister, former mayor of Provins and ex-president of the UMP group then LR in the Assembly (from 2010 to 2019), he took the lead of the party in October 2019. Known for his ability to federate, he had brought the party together in view of the 2022 electoral period. However, the formation, weakened by the results of the elections, is today crossed by quite diverse political and ideological lines, threatening its unity. Few subjects there are unanimous, starting with the legacy left by Christian Jacob. The world quoted as such the admiration of Aurélien Pradié for his former president “Chiraquian”, who knew how to transmit his experience to the new guard. But the media also quoted MEP Brice Hortefeux who is more nuanced about the former boss, evoking his lack of incarnation of the function and his “non-presidential” side.
In addition, this departure from rue Vaugirard comes when the President of the Republic was in the midst of negotiations with the leaders of the opposition party. The LR group in fact occupies a role of choice within this new Assembly without a majority, torn between two oppositions that could not be more divergent (namely the Nupes and the RN). With some 70 deputies, the Republican right could be the adequate ally of a presidential camp in difficulty since the loss of the absolute majority on June 19th. The choice of its leader will therefore be crucial in the future of French political life and will determine part of the balance of power within the hemicycle.
The party is reorganizing itself as a whole. The election of Olivier Marleix at the head of the parliamentary group on June 22 marked a turning point, shortly after the departure of Damien Abad, conquered by the macronie. And the changes don’t stop there. Cécile Richez, until then the party’s communications director, will be replaced by Marie-Eve Malouines, Anne Genevard’s current communications officer. For her part, Cécile Richez should become general secretary from September. She will succeed in this capacity to Jean-François Verdier, who will for his part be placed in the administration of the party.