The right has a face. She is still looking for a leader. Eric Ciotti took control of a ship adrift on December 11, in existential crisis. His narrow victory (53.7%) reminds Les Républicains (LR) of a cruel reality. After five years of macronism, they still do not have a natural leader. The tandem formed by Eric Ciotti and Laurent Wauquiez met with minimal success.
Xavier Bertrand anticipated a victory in the first round for the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, who promised to propel the candidacy of the ex-boss of LR for 2027. In the absence of a landslide victory, the game remains open. “We were told that LR was monolithic. All of this is false”, sums up an intimate of the boss of Hauts-de-France.
In the Wauquiez camp, we challenge a partial reading of the result. The springs of this election were multiple, it was not a presidential election before the hour. Pro-Wauquiez members voted for Bruno Retailleau, when critics of the former minister lined up behind Eric Ciotti. And then, only the victory is beautiful. “Without the support of Laurent, Ciotti did not win”, we summarize. There is the paradox: the contribution of the regional president was decisive, but the opportunity to nominate him early as a candidate in 2027 divided the party.
Two intact presidential ambitions
Bertrand-Wauquiez. Two presidential ambitions intact. These false twins pretend to neglect the LR device. Xavier Bertrand, whose “social” line is in the minority internally, relies on the We France movement to expand his political offer. It multiplies this fall the meetings on the pension reform. Laurent Wauquiez judges that taking LR was not an ideal launch pad for 2027. Discreet in the media, he embarked in October on a series of meetings with the French, without elected officials or cameras. “He scripted his crossing of the desert. It’s very Sarkozyist”, mocks an LR executive.
This contempt displayed for the party is all relative. The device is moribund, but you might as well have it with you. Laurent Wauquiez signed up at the end of the campaign for Eric Ciotti. Xavier Bertrand, who had little interest in a success of the southerner, supported Bruno Retailleau in the second round. Several of his lieutenants would have appreciated the same dedication for Aurélien Pradié, for whom Xavier Bertrand voted, before the first round. “He did the minimum service, regrets a relative. The Pradié right, however, is his.”
The victory of the Azurean is bad news for the boss of Hauts-de-France. The two men, with distinct political lines, have bad relations. The presidential campaign has left its mark. Xavier Bertrand should not expect any gift from the new boss of LR.
“Bertrand will have to find a way”
Xavier Bertrand finally confused LR activists with his back and forth. Bruno Retailleau’s team thus preferred not to stage the rapprochement of the two men, for fear of a repulsive effect on voters. His popular right is echoed in public opinion, but hardly finds a partisan receptacle: “He has no cards in hand, judges an LR strategist. He does not embody renewal after his failure in 2021 and sees himself compete with Pradié on the niche of the popular right. The person concerned digs his furrow and finds that the opinion polls are not unfavorable to him. Not enough to eliminate competition, as the last primary showed. “He will have to find a way”, summarizes a faithful.
In private, Laurent Wauquiez sees Xavier Bertrand as a center-right competitor for Edouard Philippe. Bertrand believes that his rival, with a more identity-based discourse, is engaged in an unofficial primary against Marine Le Pen. The former insurer, on the other hand, makes “refusal of extremes” the heart of its positioning.
The two tenors are launched. Their fate will depend on the reconstruction of the right. Parties still structure our political life. It is not Macron who wants. LR has two years to renew. Eric Ciotti’s strategy will come up against reality. With the Wauquiez card, the deputy chose to favor embodiment over the ideological overhaul of the party. At the risk of transforming an aging party into a simple presidential stable, even if the Wauquiez camp defends itself in advance from any “co-management” of LR.
The European elections of 2024 will be a justice of the peace. The ballot promises to be delicate for the right, caught between the line of the RN and that of Renaissance. “In 2019, we were either pro or anti-EU. We were caught between these two messages”, confided in September Laurent Wauquiez. The scenario could repeat itself, with a Reconquest list as the icing on the bitter cake.
What to complete the right before its resurrection? Ex-LR boss Christian Jacob does not believe a poor score would bend the game. “You don’t care”, he confided to Laurent Wauquiez, who wondered in the spring about the advisability of competing for the presidency of LR with this deadline. At less than 5%, LR would however disappear from the European Parliament. A twilight signal.