He has been waiting for this “return match” since 2019. His wish was granted. François-Xavier Bellamy will lead the Republican list in the European elections on June 9, announced this Monday, January 15 Eric Ciotti on the TF1 television news. The boss of LR praised a “remarkable European elected official who gave influence to our group, to France in the European Parliament in Strasbourg or Brussels”. The announcement was not a surprise, only its timetable was shrouded in uncertainty. Here is the philosopher with an existential roadmap: ensuring the survival of a right threatened with disappearance in Strasbourg.
François-Xavier Bellamy wanted to lift the affront of 2019 (8.5%), which precipitated the fall of LR president Laurent Wauquiez. To do this, he must take up the same challenge as his first attempt and open up a political space between Macronie and the National Rally (RN). Not easy. The two adversaries target each other to better make the competition invisible. The right-handed change observed since 2022 by Emmanuel Macron increasingly questions the singularity of LR. As evidenced by the appointment of Rachida Dati to the Ministry of Culture, yet another stab.
In search of political oxygen
François-Xavier Bellamy finally suffers from new competition on his right: Marion Maréchal, to whom he is ideologically close, will lead the Reconquest list. Eric Zemmour’s party multiplies its winks to LR voters, relying on the poaching of LR elected officials by the executive to disqualify the party.
The MEP must oppose these predators with an offensive speech. Demonstrate the usefulness of LR to loosen the vice. In an interview with Figaro, he promises to campaign on immigration, where “the essential remains to be done to guarantee the protection of borders”, as well as on the “reconstruction of economic sovereignty”. In October he theorized the equation submitted to his camp: “We must never get into the question ‘are we for or against Europe?’. If the equation is that, we have lost. Who is for? Macron. Against? Le Pen. And we are holding the only real and sensible discourse which consists of saying that Europe is a reality and that we must direct it in a more effective way.”
On the right, a strange inevitability accompanies this designation. “We have no one else”: the formula is repeated ad nauseam by party officials. Eric Ciotti polled Rachida Dati or the mayor of Cannes David Lisnard to take the lead in the list. In vain. The boss of LR did not receive many CVs, but that of François-Xavier Bellamy has grown. His record as an MEP is recognized by his peers, who praise his involvement. Valérie Pécresse has finally been there. The defeat of the candidate in the presidential election (4.5%) rehabilitated Bellamy’s result of 2019. In politics, defeats are relative. “He is saved by Pécresse’s score, noted an LR executive in September. If she had scored 11%, he would have been automatically released.”
A more media campaign
He wants to believe in his lucky star. François-Xavier Bellamy judges that he has learned from his past mistakes. His campaign will be televised more than in 2019, he who had focused on meetings. The enthusiasm surrounding these trips had blinded the candidate to his drop in public opinion at the end of the race. The MEP intends to highlight the “left-wing” record of the Renew group in Strasbourg and the supposed uselessness of RN MEPs. “What did they report to Paris?, he confided to L’Express. They did not move a comma in a single text.”
François-Xavier Bellamy is credited with 8 to 9% of voting intentions, ahead of the Reconquête list. Is he criticized for his intellectual twinship with Marion Maréchal? He thinks he can prevent a new hemorrhage of voters from Reconquest. His detractors, on the other hand, mock his overly right-wing profile, an obstacle to a reconquest of the Macronist right. Everyone fears that the examination of the bill on the end of life or that on the constitutionalization of abortion will highlight its societal conservatism. On the right, we stopped dreaming. No one anticipates a spectacular rebirth of the right on June 9. We must limit the damage and remain in the European Parliament. And if François-Xavier Bellamy improves his 2019 score, so much the better! “We will not make people dream in this election but we can survive,” noted an LR MEP at the start of the school year. An ambition as modest as it is dizzying.