MP Éric Ciotti, whom Les Républicains had tried in vain to exclude since his alliance with the National Rally in the legislative elections, announced this Sunday, September 22, that he was leaving the party and its presidency, opening the race for his succession.
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The announcement was made in an interview with Figaro. ” My decision to leave LR will allow us to rebuild a large political family with clarity and independence. “, estimated Eric Ciottiwho launched his own party at the end of August, called the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR).
His decision comes three weeks before the hearing scheduled for October 14 where the courts were to rule on the exclusion of their president by the LR leaderswho had refused to give up his functions and his office. I have won three times (in court) and I had no concerns about the hearing on October 14th. “, underlines the elected representative of the Alpes-Maritimes, who chairs a group of 16 deputies in the Assembly. But the audience ” no longer has any purpose, since I will have left the LR presidency and the LR party by then “.
Assuring that he had informed both the leader of the LR deputies Laurent Wauquiez and Marine Le Pen of his decision, Éric Ciotti launched a new appeal to the LR elected representatives to join him in order to consolidate what he presents as an Italian-style union of the right, which would go from the centre-right to the extreme right.
The announcement comes the day after that of the composition of Michel Barnier’s governmentwhich includes several members of his former party such as Senator Bruno Retailleau, appointed to the Interior, or LR Secretary General Annie Genervard to Agriculture. “It will no longer be possible to work with those who are in Emmanuel Macron’s government,” laments Éric Ciotti, stressing however that the president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) David Lisnard, MEP François-Xavier Bellamy and Laurent Wauquiez ” did not fall into this grotesque caricature and this crude trap set by Emmanuel Macron “.
After his alliance with the RN, Éric Ciotti kept his constituency of Nice, but he has only managed to bring with him for the moment one LR deputy, Christelle d’Intorni, also in the Alpes-Maritimes.
This departure now opens the way to the designation of the new president of the Republicans, for which Laurent Wauquiez could run, according to internal sources. The president of the group of 47 LR deputies in the Assembly, called La Droite républicaine (LR), has chosen not to participate in Michel Barnier’s government after refusing the Ministry of Finance.