Last big meeting in Lyon Thursday evening for Valérie Pécresse. The right-wing candidate, whose polls are considering the crash in 4th or 5th position, called on her supporters to “make the prognosticators lie” on Sunday by carrying her to the second round. A little earlier, she was in Beaujolais in contact with winegrowers and workers who manufacture parts for cars and electric bicycles.
with our special correspondent,Lucile Gimberg
” Until the last day », Valerie Pécresse will have kept her political family united around her, at least on the front. And, despite the failures and the poaching, until the end she will have campaigned, ” thoroughly because France is full of problems and because these problems have their origin in the scribbling policy of the President of the Republic, so there must be a 3and path between extremes and Macronian inaction and this 3and way is that of the Republican right… »
So to the Beaujolais winegrowers, she talks in particular about transmission. And to the workers of this auto parts factory for his promise to increase wages by 10% over the five-year term.
But reality catches up with her, with Jessy telling her straight away that he will vote for Eric Zemmour on Sunday: “ she told me that Eric Zemmour didn’t have the right solutions so I replied: ‘coming from someone who has a full (bank) account thanks to Alstom’…. » [une allusion à la carrière du mari de Valérie Pécresse, Jérôme au sein d’Alstom et de General Electric, NDLR].
Then during his last meeting in Lyon, “ We’re gonna lie all the polls….”, launches the candidate. ” Courage Valerie “, respond Bruno Retailleaupresident of the group Les Républicains au Sénat… The barons of the right multiply the marks of affection, but their voices already resonate in hollow their ambitions for the future and their differences: no accommodation with Eric Zemmour or Marine Le Pen, for Damien Abad when Laurent Wauquiez refuses him immobility » and the « destruction “.
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Differences, in particular on the position to adopt vis-à-vis a possible Macron-Le Pen duel, which could reappear on Sunday evening.
Laurent Wauquiez in ambush
In January, Valérie Pécresse had completed her round of rallying the barons of the right through his stronghold, the former party leader and boss of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. To complete this campaign, she was therefore once again on the land of the man in the red parka, very popular among LR activists, but whose very right-wing line she had harshly criticized in the past. President of the committee of elected officials who support the candidate, Laurent Wauquiez led a dozen or so meetings throughout France for this 2022 campaign. But we will not have seen the shadow of his support on television sets.
A minimum service so as not to appear as a divider, without risking losing feathers in a campaign that has bogged down. But also and above all because Laurent Wauquiez is preparing for the aftermath. He intends to be the candidate of the right in 2027. By then, he could try to be a deputy or to take over the party, of which he left the management in June 2019in which these differences of line which had separated them in the past, Valérie Pécresse and him, could well come back in force on the evening of the first round.