In a little less than two months will take place the election for the presidency of the Les Républicains party on May 17. A certainty since this week, it will be a duel between Laurent Wauquiez and Bruno Retailleau since no other candidate declared himself before the deadline of March 17. The campaign is tough and clearly stretched between the two men.
The challenger is him. Laurent Wauquiez is forced to attack. Since the start of the campaign, he has followed his line: to boast independence against solidarity with the fragile government of François Bayrou and jump on all the balls.
Last weekend, Bruno Retailleau He offered him on a set. The latter threatens to resign if France yields to the Algerian file. He intends to carry out an showdown in this file through a graduated response, going as far as denouncing the 1968 agreements, to which President Macron is not favorable.
Laurent Wauquiez seizes it: in an interview with Parisianhe declares: “ The executive has chosen to capitulate even before fighting. If the President of the Republic refuses to denounce the agreements, staying at the Ministry of the Interior, it makes no sense. Tuesday, new spike. During questions to the government, the head of deputies LR is addressed to the Prime Minister by deploring the absence of a great text on immigration. He asks: ” Are you determined to give your government the means to act? ».
Rebelote Thursday, in social networks, in reaction to the 10-year-old indictment against the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. : “ The Algerian response, it is not graduated Reacts Laurent Wauquiez
This pressure, close to that of the national rally, to which the Minister of the Interior does not respond, at least not directly. Last week, he risked a formula on the radio: ” Dogs bark, the caravan passes “Said Bruno Retailleau. His extrapole competitor, saying that he is convinced that Bruno Retailleau regrets this unhappy formula.
Read tooWauquiez vs Retailleau, towards yet another fratricidal war among the Republicans?
Signs of annoyance in retailops
And behind the scenes, however, the teams of Bruno Retailleau speak. Yes, his entourage says it with irony: ” Laurent Wauquiez has this advantage of not being a group leader in the National Assembly. His absence from the two debates on Ukraine is a shame ».
Laurent Wauquiez abandons, it is true, his functions as a deputy to make 120 campaign trips until May. You have to do ” cards “, As we say in the jargon. About 20,000 new members have joined LR ranks since the start of the campaign, 60,000 potential voters to date. In this shadow battle, the “retailops” show some signs of annoyance. One of them admits in Off: ” Laurent Wauquiez in hand on the party, and we scream more and more with us. »»
What suggest to another match in the match, which the “Wauquiezists” impose: the candidate of the members against that of the party barons. A way for supporters of Laurent Wauquiez to minimize the latest rallies of new heavy goods vehicles in Bruno Retailleau: Valérie Pécresse and Minister Sophie Primas, in particular.