Laurent Wauquiez has memory. He even made a weapon against Bruno Retailleau. This Tuesday, February 4, the boss of the Republican right deputies dines with the Minister of the Interior. For a long time, he perceived the conquest of the Presidency of Republicans (LR) as a simple formality. Didn’t his party load it this fall with a party to refound the party? He made the conclusions on Wednesday during a political bureau of the movement. The mission letter foreshadowed by a Roman triumph. Missed. The meteoric ascent of the Vendéen, combined with the sudden degradation of their relations, has shone in the scenario. The little music of a candidacy of Bruno Retailleau never stops going up.
In Beauvau, Laurent Wauquiez warns his host. Beware of you Bruno! He invokes an supposed “agreement” between the two men. To one the party, to the other the government. “If you have it, you will carry the responsibility of lighting a war of the chiefs who will be devastating,” he said, according to the entourage of the former minister. The “leak” is not trivial, the words reported are meticulously chosen.
Laurent Wauquiez touches a sensitive string. He knows how much the right fears a fratricidal struggle, twelve years after the bloody duel between François Fillon and Jean-François Copé. And uses a skillful rhetoric to disqualify its competitor. Bruno Retailleau would only be the disruptive agent of a compromise built months ago. The candidacy of Laurent Wauquiez would be struck by the seal of the evidence, that of the former senator would sign the division of the right. “Everyone in his place, he assured on February 4 on BFMTV. Bruno inside the government. […] in the refoundation of our party. We are complementary. “
“Who pisses in the neighbor’s garden?”
Retaille the divider. Around Laurent Wauquiez, we immerse ourselves in the past to attach to the minister the infamous label. Has not the Vendéen participated this summer in the ascent of Mont Mezenc, ritual of the deputy of Haute-Loire? And his flattering words during LR parliamentary days? “Retailleau no longer assumes this sharing of roles and changes the rules of the game, fulminates a faithful of Laurent Wauquiez. Who pisses in the neighbor’s garden? It is not us.” The war of the stories is initiated. The Retailleau camp has not forgotten the unfortunate attempts of Laurent Wauquiez to enter the government. In September, inside. After the appointment of François Bayrou, in a large Bercy. Far from the wise distribution of roles now mentioned. Bruno Retailleau does not look like Edouard Balladur, he hardly wants to put on the traitor’s costume.
In this duel, there is therefore a question of legitimacy. That of Laurent Wauquiez is an “agreement”, of which he would be the guarantor. Bruno Retailleau draws his from his insolent popularity and his new status. The unknown senator in September changed dimension in four months. The flattering results of an OpinionWay survey, commissioned by its Republican Microparti Force, were opportunely released this Wednesday in the press. “Wauquiez cannot claim to be a natural candidate of the right, Bruno is in the lead,” defends a Dr. deputy. Former Minister Jean-François Copé confirms: “Wauquiez’s message is to say that anyone who presents himself against him is a divider. This approach is reductive.”
There is an ambiguity in this duel. Can an internal election campaign be healthy? Is competition synonymous with blood on the walls? The relatives of Bruno Retailleau drape themselves in the tinters of democracy, in essence unstalopable. That it would be inelegant to fear the choice of voters, its pure emanation. They promise a race “far from the channel”, without stinking balls. To these arguments, a relative of Laurent Wauquiez opposes a cold pragmatism. “An internal election with two political heavyweights which do not have a distinction of a spectacular line is violent de facto. Saying the opposite would be lying.” The communication battle began.
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