PRESIDENT LR. The results of the first round of the election of the president of the Republicans were revealed this Sunday, December 4, 2022. Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau will face each other in a second round which will take place on December 10 and 11.
[Mis à jour le 4 décembre 2022 à 19h11] The 91,109 members of the Les Républicains party had until 6 p.m. this Sunday, December 4, 2022 to elect their new president, in an electronic ballot. And there will finally be a second round for this election, since none of the three candidates managed to obtain the majority of the votes. Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau will thus compete for the presidency of the party. Members will be asked to decide between them during a vote, again electronic, which will be held from Saturday December 10 at 6 p.m. to Sunday December 11 at 6 p.m.
72.67% of the 91,109 registered voters voted during this first round, i.e. 66,216 votes. Eric Ciotti obtained 28,297 votes, or 42.73% of the vote. His now opponent in the second round, Bruno Retailleau, meanwhile obtained 22,815 votes, or 34.45% of the votes. Considered since the beginning of the campaign as an outsider in the race for the presidency of the Republicans, Aurélien Pradié, unsurprisingly, finished last by collecting 14,765 votes, or 22.29% of the votes cast. These figures were revealed by Annie Genevard, current interim president of the Republicans, in the minutes following the end of the electronic ballot.
Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, formalized his support for Eric Ciotti on Wednesday November 30, in a video posted on Twitter by the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes. An unsurprising decision, because one of Eric Ciotti’s main campaign arguments is Laurent Wauquiez’s candidacy for the next presidential election in 2027, as recalled The HuffPost. The latter does not hide his desire to be a candidate in 2027. He thus declared in The Obs on November 28: “I’m going to tell you things very clearly and as I think them: in 2027, either it will be me or it will be Marine Le Pen.”
During the campaign for the presidency of LR, Bruno Retailleau, Eric Ciotti and Aurélien Pradié all three said they opposed an alliance with the presidential majority. A common position which seems to be out of step with the wishes of LR supporters, according to the political barometer Odoxa-Mascaret produced for LCP, Public Senate and The Dispatch. Indeed, 73% of LR supporters questioned in this poll say they are in favor of Les Républicains joining an alliance, and 45% of them are in favor of an alliance with the presidential majority. In any case, what is at stake in this election for the presidency of the Republicans seems of little importance for a large part of the French people, according to a Cluster17 poll carried out for Point and published Saturday, December 3. In fact, in this study, 72% of those questioned believe that Les Républicains have no political future.
Potential candidates for the election had until November 3, 2022 to file the required sponsorships with the High Authority. After a campaign that lasted a month, the first round of the congress was therefore held between Saturday December 3, 2022 at 6 p.m. and Sunday December 4, 2022 at 6 p.m. None of the candidates managed to obtain the majority of the votes, and Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau will therefore face each other in a second round, which will take place from Saturday December 10 at 6 p.m., and will end on Sunday December 11 at 6 p.m..
If the October 2019 congress had taken place without surprises, Christian Jacob, the widely favored candidate, having won in the first round with more than 62% of the votes, this time, the suspense should be there. Especially since the future president may have a presidential future: “We must definitely get rid of the primaries, which I have also taken out of the LR statutes, and my successor must be intended to be a candidate in 2027”, explained Christian Jacob during an interview available on the Republicans website.
As during the primary organized to designate the party’s candidate for the presidential election, only up-to-date members can take part in the vote to elect the future president of the Republicans. The election regulations indicate that only people who have paid their dues 30 days before the ballot, i.e. November 3, 2022, can participate in this congress. Thus, 91,109 people are called upon to vote for the second round, which will take place on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 December. In 2019, when Christian Jacob was elected, 131,514 people were registered, but only 62,401 voted. In 2017, when Laurent Wauquiez won, 234,556 voters were eligible to vote and 98,543 participated.
Aurélien Pradié, officially candidate for the LR presidency
The deputy for Lot has long cast doubt on his candidacy for the election of President LR. But the ambition of this close friend of Christian Jacob and face of the new generation of the party was no secret and if the parliamentarian said he was “thinking about it seriously”, he above all formalized his candidacy in an interview with the Figaro September 12. Aurélien Pradié, who claims to be from the social wing of the right-wing formation, has indicated that he wants to “rebuild the popular right” which is aimed at everyone and constitutes an alternative to Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau. The elected official is known in the Republican sphere, secretary general of the party since 2019 and very active on the ground in Occitania, where he has been politically invested for many years.
Bruno Retailleau, from the president of the LR group in the Senate to the presidency of the party?
The senator who leads the group of Republicans in the upper house of Parliament, Bruno Retailleau, sees himself taking the reins of the party of the traditional right. It’s September 2, also in the columns of the Figarothat the heavyweight of the party announced to be a candidate for the LR presidency, a choice which he explains by the absence of Laurent Wauquiez: “Yes, I will be a candidate for the presidency of the Republicans. Laurent Wauquiez had all the qualities to preside our movement but, in its absence, many have asked me to introduce myself. I am not lacking in responsibility, but I am not a man to shirk.”
Eric Ciotti, one of the first candidates for the presidency of the LR party
The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, already a candidate for the LR primary in December 2021 with a view to the presidential election, is trying his luck again by claiming this time for the presidency of the party. The man, figure of the right-wing wing of the right-wing formation, has been ensuring since the summer that he is “very determined” to take part in the reconstruction of the party, as he confided to the JDD on July 24… before confirming his candidacy two days later in Nice morning. In July, the parliamentarian said he had already started “work to offer both a large gathering and a modernized political offer, in line with the expectations of the French”. “To straighten out our country, he added in the Nice daily, there is only one way: that of reform”. With this new congress, he intends more than ever to count in the future of a party which he has never left despite external appeals (in particular those of Eric Zemmour).
Laurent Wauquiez, the great favorite of the barons of the party, quickly withdrew in favor of other ambitions, more… Presidential. In a letter published on his social networks, Laurent Wauquiez, the former minister and current president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, announced that he would give up running for the LR presidency. Instead, he intends to “devote all his energy” to the “refoundation” that he thinks essential to the country. The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region does not hide his ambitions for the presidential election of 2027. He thus declared, on November 28 in The Obs : “I’m going to tell you things very clearly and as I think them: in 2027, either it will be me or it will be Marine Le Pen.”
The resignation of Christian Jacob made some waves. Former minister, former mayor of Provins and ex-president of the UMP group then LR in the Assembly (from 2010 to 2019), he took the lead of the party in October 2019. Known for his ability to federate, he had brought the party together in view of the 2022 electoral period. However, the formation, weakened by the results of the elections, is today crossed by quite diverse political and ideological lines, threatening its unity. Few subjects there are unanimous, starting with the legacy left by Christian Jacob. The world quoted as such the admiration of Aurélien Pradié for his former president “Chiraquian”, who knew how to transmit his experience to the new guard. But the media also quoted MEP Brice Hortefeux, who is more nuanced about the former boss, referring to his lack of incarnation of the function and his “non-presidential” side.
In addition, this departure from rue Vaugirard took place when the President of the Republic was in the midst of negotiations with the leaders of the opposition party. The LR group in fact occupies a role of choice within this new Assembly without a majority, torn between two oppositions that could not be more divergent (namely the Nupes and the RN). With some 70 deputies, the Republican right could be the adequate ally of a presidential camp in difficulty since the loss of the absolute majority on June 19th. The choice of its leader will therefore be crucial in the future of French political life and will determine part of the balance of power within the hemicycle.
The party is reorganizing itself as a whole. The election of Olivier Marleix at the head of the parliamentary group on June 22 marked a turning point, shortly after the departure of Damien Abad, conquered by the macronie. And the changes don’t stop there. Cécile Richez, until then the party’s communications director, has been replaced by Marie-Eve Malouines, Annie Genevard’s current communications officer. For her part, Cécile Richez became the party’s general manager in September.