Who imagined it just three days ago? Bruno Retailleau should be going over his legislative files in the Senate, the day after the European elections. The dissolution of the Assembly, combined with the alliance formed between Eric Ciotti and the RN, decided otherwise. Here is the Vendéen engaged in a political-legal guerrilla against the Niçois, excluded Tuesday from the Republicans (LR). He denounces to L’Express the betrayal of the deputy for Alpes-Maritimes and warns: “There will be no “LR-RN” candidates.
L’Express: Eric Ciotti was excluded from the Republicans on Tuesday. He contests the regularity of this election and runs on television to defend a supposed agreement with the RN. Behind the unanimity of executives, is the situation not inextricable?
Things are clear. Eric Ciotti has left the legal framework. Our movement’s principle – this is its article 4 – is to have a democratic organization and functioning. However, he made a decision contradictory to the general line that we have defined. He took it alone, without consulting our collegial authorities. A leader does not have all the rights. We are not in North Korea or China. We are not talking about a stewardship decision here, but a fundamental choice. Through his anti-democratic attitude, Eric Ciotti put himself outside the statutes and betrayed our trust. This justifies its exclusion.
Eric Ciotti does not deviate from the line and announces the investiture of 80 LR candidates supported by the RN. Aren’t we heading straight towards the confrontation of LR candidates against LR-RN candidates with Ciotti sauce, whatever their name?
There will be National Rally candidates, but no “LR-RN” candidates. This alliance cannot exist as only the National Investiture Commission, autonomous according to our statutes, can award the “LR” label. Otherwise, we will have the propaganda material banned. That is to say professions of faith or ballot papers in the prefecture.
He could play on ambiguity, by creating ballot papers such as “alliance of the rights,” or gathering of the rights”… Do not mention “LR” and thus avoid falling into illegality.
Of course. In this case, Eric Ciotti will not only have betrayed his family: he will also have tried to deceive the voters. It is this deception that I mainly criticize him for. He secretly concluded an agreement with the RN, at a time when our candidates are preparing to go into battle after a hasty dissolution. The leader shoots his own troops in the back, this is unacceptable. But now things are clear: he is no longer president of the Republicans, and none of his candidates can claim to be part of our movement.
Eric Ciotti claims to be supported by a majority of activists. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several executives admit that this is certainly true. Doesn’t it just reflect this desire of the members?
I do not believe that. Moreover, a poll shows that 72% of François-Xavier Bellamy’s voters in the European elections are against this alliance, and another published in the gallery shows that 56% of LR voters believe that Eric Ciotti was wrong. I can understand that some of our voters are disappointed because some on the right have not always been up to the task. But I remind you that to unite the right, this presupposes that everyone is: but Marine le Pen is not on the right. The RN’s economic program is closer to that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon than to ours.
During a strategic meeting in the Senate, Eric Ciotti reaffirmed Monday a line of independence for LR between now and the first “round” of the legislative elections. You denounced his “lie”. What personal reading do you make of this?
Obviously, I don’t know Eric Ciotti well, because I hadn’t anticipated this betrayal. His choice is shocking on both a political and human level. It is disloyal to negotiate secretly, when we still agreed on Monday on a line of independence. We are going through a democratic crisis because the French criticize politicians for not respecting basic values: frankness, honesty, the meaning of the word given. The right is also righteousness.
During the internal campaign for the presidency of LR, Eric Ciotti liked to point out that you are more to the right than him, you who were close to Philippe de Villiers. Here you are, a Chiraquian, defender of the cordon santé with the far right?
I am consistent and consistent. Marine Le Pen is not right-wing. She is a demagogue, who has changed her mind on just about everything. On Europe or immigration. I remember the immigration law: the representative of the RN fought the measures that our text proposed in the Joint Commission (CMP) to end up voting for them in session. Same change of foot on nuclear power. Marine Le Pen is a weather vane, she rides the ideas of the moment. She has a left-wing economic program. She opposed the 15 hours of compensation for the RSA, which we had voted for in the Senate. We supported the pension reform, she opposed it. She has always claimed that she is “neither right nor left”, a reverse mirror of “at the same time”.
You insist on your economic differences with the RN. This party is, however, absolutely ideologically plastic. Aren’t the differences you mention likely to disappear in view of recent developments? Jordan Bardella assumes a more liberal discourse…
This is the problem with demagoguery. If tomorrow the RN obtains a majority in the Assembly, it will be subject to a difficult choice. Either he assumes his commitments, and then he condemns France to ruin and the weakest French people to impoverishment. Either he doesn’t respect them, and he betrays his voters.
You are not opposing this party with moral arguments. Do you think they are inaudible or do you not agree with them in substance?
These arguments don’t work. For 40 years, we have been fighting the FN with morality. It’s a fail. We must not fight it for what it is not – I don’t think it is a neofascist party – but for what it is: a demagogue party which would lead France to bankruptcy.
This party has a history. Doesn’t that play a role in your judgment?
Its origins are clearly far-right. I give credit to Marine Le Pen for having taken on, including in her own family, a turning point with respect to this past. But that does not make the RN a solution for France. His access to power will fracture the French by hysterizing the French political landscape, which is already hysterical enough.
LR has shifted its discourse to the right on sovereign issues. Eric Ciotti defended national preference in 2021, when your proposals on immigration are closer to those of the RN. You condemn Eric Ciotti’s decision, but are you not complaining about an event whose causes you cherished?
It’s the opposite. The right has long lived under the ideological hegemony of the left, which prohibited it from talking about immigration. We lost our voters because we didn’t do enough. This mechanism is observed everywhere in Europe. When government parties paralyzed by political correctness give in, then the populists win. This is seen in France. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen obtained 11.8% of the votes against Jacques Chirac in the second round in Mayotte. In 2022, Marine Le Pen obtained almost 60%, in this territory where migratory chaos reigns.
In the event of a second round pitting an RN candidate against a Popular Front candidate in the legislative elections, who would you vote for?
We will see after the first round, for now I am fighting for our candidates. But one thing is certain: I will never give my vote to the “Popular Front”. The presence of LFI contaminates this entire left-wing alliance. The first danger facing the Republic is LFI. The new front of the left is the front of shame. The party which threatens our institutions, wishes to send the Fifth Republic to the scaffold, hysterizes the Assembly, demonstrates alongside the Islamists, spreads the poison of anti-Semitism, is the movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The great danger is there.
Eric Ciotti, by his choice, sows trouble over the political identity of LR. The right wing of the majority therefore launches appeals to certain LRs. Isn’t the damage already done?
The Macronists are primarily responsible for this situation. Because Emmanuel Macron did everything so that there was nothing between him and the RN. Eric Ciotti therefore lends his hand to this destructive operation for our democracy, the cataclysmic results of which we see. He does not ally himself with the RN: he submits to it, unconditionally.
You offer a collective image close to Vaudeville. Are you afraid that this image will weaken you on June 30?
This thought obsesses me. This spectacle that we put on in spite of ourselves is destructive. But should we refuse to fight for our beliefs? Should we accept the unacceptable? I am fighting for a response to a man who takes a political family hostage. I still hear Eric Ciotti, just last week, during François Xavier Bellamy’s last meeting, denouncing the “chaos” that the RN in power would cause. Yes, this spectacle is distressing, but it is the price to pay for the defense of our convictions and especially if we want to preserve a future.
How do you see the future of LR after the legislative elections?
During LR’s internal election, I proposed a profound overhaul to create a new party. This crisis also reveals the immobility in which our political family has been stuck for too many years. It calls for a new beginning. France needs our solutions. We will have to turn the page of a party at the end of the day. It will be necessary to rebuild a movement, change brands and redefine software. It is at this price that we will be able to regain the confidence of the French.
You are talking about ideals. Politics also obeys a principle of reality. The tripartite nature of political life does not condemn you?
The tripartition is the creation of Emmanuel Macron and we see what a field of political ruins it has created. It is a poison for democracy, because it gives radicalism a monopoly on alternation. Only the right-left divide can bring us back to a peaceful civic conversation and the possibility of a stable and responsible majority for France.
The RN is at the gates of power. What responsibility bears Emmanuel Macron in this situation ?
Emmanuel Macron was the worst president of the Fifth Republic. He dynamited everything, destroyed everything but built nothing, since his record is a failure on all levels. He fulfilled his promise to bring down the old world, beyond what he thought since he is now the first victim of this disengagement. Today, no party is capable of leading France, apart from demagogues and ideologues. Unfortunately, the legislative elections could well be the last fireworks of this sorcerer’s apprentice policy.
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