François Bayrou represses an upturn of shoulders. This February 12, 2025, Bruno Retailleau launched the Fortress Les Républicains (LR), long promised to Laurent Wauquiez. The Prime Minister lets go. He, president of the modem, would be badly inspired to teach the tenant of Beauvau. Didn’t he want to appoint party leaders in December to government? He prefers to direct a strong executive, even if it means losing in authority. Here it is served. Perhaps it happens to the head of government to regret his choice. Because the internal campaign of the Republicans (LR) appears a little more for what it is: a fragmentation bomb, which threatens both the fragile coalition as a convalescent party.
“Responsibility.” LR has repeated ad nauseam This word in September to justify his return to business. This self -proclaimed “Party of Government” – he clings to his glorious past as a comforter – had to take the controllers so as not to leave the country in the hands of the new Popular Front (NFP). LR wanted to stay at a distance from a macronism in agony? The party adopted a skilful sacrificial rhetoric to justify its change of foot, which allowed it to regain the gaze of the French.
Political life hostage
Las, the intestine war dilutes these declarations of intention. The boss of the deputies LR Laurent Wauquiez pillar François Bayrou and Emmanuel Macron to better weaken Bruno Retailleau. By castigating “the immobility” of the Prime Minister, he questions the legitimacy of the presence of the Vendéen inside. At the risk of tarnishing the image of “responsibility”, which he summoned in September. “Wauquiez is able to take political life hostage due to an internal competition,” noted a central block minister in February. This responsibility is shared. The internal election also parasites the action of Bruno Retailleau. He overcomes independence to escape any collusion trial with macronism. He brandished his arbitrations won in Matignon and did not hesitate to get out of his perimeter to make his right -hand music heard. “This election is played out on the respective distance from Bayrou,” notes a relative of the Prime Minister.
Thus, the Minister of the Interior stages his conflict with Algeria, supposed proof of his intransigence. He quips on his sudden notoriety in the former French colony, leaves the threat of resignation and does not lack an opportunity to demand the release of Boualem Sansal. Too bad if this media coverage of the case of the writer browsing the apostles of a shadow diplomacy. Is a Minister of the Interior legitimate to request the denunciation of the 1968 agreements, prerogative of the Head of State? What does it matter, again. Bruno Retailleau does it, in an assumed wink to his voters.
The common base in danger?
The boat pitch, but does not flow. No one imagines Laurent Wauquiez to vote a motion of censorship against the government to seduce its activists. The spirit of “responsibility” prohibits it. At low noise, doubts go up. A LR deputy moved to colleagues: could the boss of the LR group not have his troops voted on maintaining participation in the government? Tremors to plan. Would a resignation of Bruno Retailleau weaken – would condemn? – François Bayrou, by reducing his parliamentary base to skin of sorrow. The bullets are now pulled white. But this game could tire of right -wing voters, hardly concerned about the future of a political family at 60,000 members.
Between Wauquiez and Retailleau, total war threatens. She was predictable. Too little divergences separate the two men, to obvious ideological twinness. Their campaign strategies exacerbate tensions. Laurent Wauquiez does not deploy any clean and target political offer – without ever quoting it – his rival. Does he have the choice? The tenant of Beauvau takes advantage of his status to establish himself with activists. He hardly leaves other angles of attack on the challenger, forced to bite his calves. The asymmetry of the two profiles – minister against deputy – leads to such a duel. There is only one ring possible: the national scene.
This fratricidal struggle is likely to be turned up, as the impetrants are large. Laurent Wauquiez plays his political “survival” in this crucial election for 2027. A defeat would (almost) annihilate all his chances of being on the starting line. In the event of failure, the political capital accumulated by Bruno Retailleau since September would evaporate. When we set up as a depositary of the “national majority” in the government, one cannot be disowned by his own. The two men finally have abysmal relationships, just like their entourage.
Laurent Wauquiez and Bruno Retailleau have at least one thing in common. The conquest of LR, a small formation, is not their ultimate dream. It is only a step for 2027. They must not lose too many feathers in this intermediate ballot. The UMP’s heir party is too weak to afford the luxury of a total war. The right -wing voters would look away. For everyone, victory is as important as the conditions under which it is obtained. This requirement is particularly worth for Laurent Wauquiez, hated by so many movement frames. But not only for him. An LR minister recently told colleague: “Even if Retailleau wins, he will have blood on his jacket.” No one is in interest to reign over a cemetery.
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