PRESIDENT LR. The first round of the election of the new president of the Republicans takes place on December 3 and 4, 2022. Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié are all three candidates, and the first seems favorite to win the race.
[Mis à jour le 2 décembre 2022 à 11h32] The first round of the congress aimed at electing the new president of the Les Républicains (LR) party takes place from Saturday December 3 to Sunday December 4, 2022. Three candidates are competing: Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié. The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, Eric Ciotti, seems to be the great favorite in this election for which approximately 91,000 members are called to the polls, according to figures from Release. Indeed, according to the Odoxa-Mascaret political barometer produced for LCP, Public Senate and The Dispatch, Eric Ciotti is above his two opponents in terms of popularity with LR supporters. He thus collects 41% support in this survey carried out on November 23 and 24, against 27% for Bruno Retailleau and 17% for Aurélien Pradié.
Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, formalized his support for Eric Ciotti on Wednesday November 30, in a video posted on Twitter by the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes. An unsurprising decision, because one of Eric Ciotti’s main campaign arguments is Laurent Wauquiez’s candidacy for the next presidential election in 2027, as recalled The HuffPost. The latter does not hide his desire to be a candidate in 2027. He thus declared in The Obs on November 28: “I’m going to tell you things very clearly and as I think them: in 2027, either it will be me or it will be Marine Le Pen.”
During the campaign for the presidency of LR, Bruno Retailleau, Eric Ciotti and Aurélien Pradié all three said they opposed an alliance with the presidential majority. A common position which seems to be out of step with the wishes of LR supporters, according to the political barometer Odoxa-Mascaret quoted earlier in this article. Indeed, 73% of LR supporters questioned in this poll say they are in favor of Les Républicains joining an alliance, and 45% of them are in favor of an alliance with the presidential majority. In any case, the campaign for this internal election will not have fascinated French society, as evidenced by a poll carried out by YouGov for the HuffPost. According to this survey, only 36% of those questioned say they are interested in the election and, even worse, 56% of French people have not heard of it.
What do the polls say about the election of President LR?
Rare are the polls which have been interested in the election of the president of the Republicans. The latest is the Odoxa-Mascaret political barometer produced for LCP, Public Senate and The Dispatch, November 23 and 24. According to this survey, Eric Ciotti is ahead of Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié in terms of popularity among LR supporters. The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes indeed collects 41% of adhesion, against 27% for Bruno Retailleau and 17% for Aurélien Pradié. Eric Ciotti is however a divisive personality among Republican sympathizers, since 26% of them say they reject the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, against 24% for Aurélien Pradié and only 18% for Bruno Retailleau.
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 “false poll”, 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. The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region does not hide his ambitions for the presidential election of 2027. He thus declared, on November 28 in The Obs : “I’m going to tell you things very clearly and as I think them: in 2027, either it will be me or it will be Marine Le Pen.”
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.