“Party of government.” Eric Ciotti likes to define Les Républicains (LR) in this way since his election as party president. Difficult to define this concept, closer to the media commonplace than to the scientific term. To claim this attribute, what qualities must a political movement display? Have exercised power in the recent past, be part of a republican framework or belong to the “circle of reason” dear to Alain Minc? Never mind the ambiguity of the formula: LR clings to this quality, survival of a glorious past, to justify its existence. A modest lifeline for a party that fell to less than 5% of the vote during the last presidential election. The boss of LR deputies Olivier Marleix is wary of the notion, but praises the “consistency” and the spirit of “responsibility” of his training. “Coherence” requires fidelity to convictions and unity. “Responsibility” has an ideological tinge for a party committed to rigorous management of public accounts.
The failed Ciotti strategy
The pension reform has shattered this shield. Only a large half of the LR group was ready to vote on the text, forcing the executive to draw article 49.3. 19 elected officials even voted for the motion of censure of the Liot group, in defiance of official instructions. These divisions make LR’s line illegible and deal a severe blow to Eric Ciotti’s strategy. The support of the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes for the bill pursues an ambition: to win back the right-wing voters who have gone to Emmanuel Macron by means of a reformist speech. “My attitude on pensions, beyond the bottom, aims not to deprive us of these people,” he confides in private.
It missed. The Niçois failed his first big test at the head of LR. “We had the means to distinguish ourselves from Le Pen by showing our seriousness, but I think we gave the RN a lot of air. Part of our liberal electorate risks designating Macron as the super reformer”, lamented in February the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau. Forgot Valérie Pécresse’s retirement program at 65! Nettles, François Fillon’s ode to liberalism! The change of foot of an LR fringe is confusing. Who imagines La France insoumise tearing itself apart over the rise in the minimum wage? “Our fellow senators voted for the text and a majority of LR deputies defended this reform, tempers Olivier Marleix. Afterwards, the right-wing voter may be surprised that some have heard different sounds.” Sweet understatement of a man with an impossible task.
Sociological shift
This fracture took root on June 19, 2022. 62 LR deputies survived the legislative elections. The digital contraction is geographic: the parliamentary right is disappearing from urban areas and large agglomerations. It is swept away in Ile-de-France and in the western face of the country. The elected officials are mainly from popular territories, hostile to Emmanuel Macron. “There is a gap between the LR constituencies and the right-wing electorate,” notes a party executive.
No national campaign is conducted after the rout of Valérie Pécresse. These deputies owe their victory to their local roots and derive increased freedom from it. “Ciotti has no authority because we are self-employed”, notes the deputy of Pas-de-Calais Pierre-Henri Dumont. Olivier Marleix is not mistaken and guarantees LR deputies freedom to vote during his campaign for the presidency of the group. Sociological shift on one side, independence on the other: the ingredients of the crisis are there.
The LR group does not take up the pension file at the start of the school year. A mistake, consider a posteriori several elected officials. The hot potato arrives at the worst time, during the internal campaign for the presidency of the party. Apostle of a popular right, Aurélien Pradié rejects the postponement of the legal age in favor of an exclusive increase in the contribution period. Bruno Retailleau is sticking to the first option. Retreats become a political object, where convictions and posture are intertwined.
Deadly internal competition
“The debate has been polluted by this internal calendar”, notes Olivier Marleix. He won the LR group in December, when a succession of meetings brought to light the internal fractures. The right then turns into a curious left wing of macronism. It multiplies the social demands towards the government and outlines an internal compromise around them. At Matignon, Elisabeth Borne observes this group, which is as elusive as it is crucial. Cursed relative majority! In private, she summarizes her insoluble equation. “We must work with them, they have been calling for pension reform for a long time. But LR considers that partnering with the government weakens them in view of 2027.”
The Prime Minister, pragmatic, knows how to count. She drops several concessions to LR before the presentation of her text. An agreement is reached with his staff, obsessed with his “credibility” as a “party of government”. But nothing is simple on the right. Aurélien Pradié and his relatives refuse to dub the government copy and put maximum pressure on the executive for new progress. The devouring ambition of the Lotois is beyond doubt. But the man, elected in a land of the left, claims a strategic divergence with Eric Ciotti. He judges that the salvation of the right goes through a reconquest of the working classes by means of a frank break with Macronism. In private, he rails against the management’s eagerness to “deal” with the executive and promises to “finish ideologically” Bruno Retailleau. “If we do not support a popular and social right, we will send voters to Le Pen”, explains Pierre-Henri Dumont. Everyone has their own vision of a governing party.
Elected officials are the product of their electoral sociology. The challenge rises in the group as it wins the country. The fracture between the right “from above” and that “from below” is revealed on February 14, during a political office of LR. The feathered hats overwhelmingly approve of raising the legal age to 64. Too bad for the doubts of the deputies and a notable part of the LR sympathizers. “Our electorate is composite, notes the vice-president of LR Julien Aubert. Half of the people vote for us because they think that we are a party of responsible government. The other half want to vote for an opposition party in Macron who is not the RN. The hierarchy of LR is not representative of the fracture in the electorate. These fractures will never be bridged.
“It can’t go on like this for four years”
On the right, the temptation to redo the film is great. The general opinion is that the deputies were not sufficiently involved in the government negotiations, which they often followed in the press. Olivier Marleix is criticized for his managerial deficiencies or Eric Ciotti for having pampered Aurélien Pradié too much and his permanent one-upmanship. His eviction from the post of No. 2 of LR will only happen the day after the end of the debates in the Assembly. “They went, like the bourgeois of Calais, to bring their requests to Borne”, mocked an LR pillar in February.
Could the outcome have been different? Nothing is less sure. The composition of the LR group carried the seeds of division, as did the absence of leadership from Eric Ciotti, hardly helped by the discretion of Laurent Wauquiez. The parliamentary right got stuck in a deadly dilemma, between political logic and a spirit of coherence. “From schizophrenia, noted in early March the deputy of Savoie Emilie Bonnivard. We are in the opposition and we must vote for a very unpopular reform to be consistent with ourselves.”
This split questions the future of LR. What connects a divided party on such a genetic subject? Hasn’t the LR group become a collective of mayors sitting in the National Assembly? “It cannot continue like this for four years”, slices the deputy of Indre Nicolas Forissier. e. A movement of local elected officials who defend their constituency and no longer have the ambition to have a majority collective adventure”, laments a deputy. This state of mind risks discrediting the heir of the UMP. n a group meeting, the deputy of Côte-d’Or Hubert Brigand launched on March 14 to Olivier Marleix: “I do not want to shine in Paris, but at home.” The sentence is as fair as it is cruel for the right.