This is an iron rule of European elections: national issues occupy a preponderant place. The 2024 vintage will be no exception. The president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella promises to make it “the big mid-term election” by Emmanuel Macron. The supporters of the head of state will not fail in return to defend the record of their champion. And the Republicans (LR) in all this? The right will play for its survival on June 9, after its presidential rout. But internal clouds are gathering over his countryside.
The examination of the Immigration bill rekindles for her the existential question of its relationship to Macronism. Demanding partnership or irreducible opposition? The right is crossed by strategic dissensions on the text. The Senate has toughened the government copy to the great displeasure of the boss of LR deputies Olivier Marleix, keen to oppose the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. The elected official from Eure-et-Loir warned the probable head of the list François-Xavier Bellamy. “You will have to assume the same assessment as Macron in terms of European migration policy. The European pact is an EPP pact [NDLR : le Parti populaire européen], the president will pride himself on it. If you have the same national record and we leave the RN the opposition monopoly on immigration, good luck to you!”
IVG and end of life
The conservative philosopher knows better than anyone that a campaign can be hit by national issues: in 2019, his controversial remarks on the Vincent Lambert affair – legal battle around the cessation of treatments for a patient in a vegetative state – cost dear to his camp. The elected official had warned against the construction of “an inhumane world”, a few days before the vote. It is generally agreed that these outings brought the right below the symbolic bar of 10% (8.48%) and led to the resignation of its president Laurent Wauquiez.
The story repeats itself. Five years later, François-Xavier Bellamy will campaign against the backdrop of the examination of the law on the end of life and the constitutionalization of the right to abortion. The man is hardly in favor of these societal developments, going against public opinion. Two themes, two traps. In January 2019, the LR candidate had caused trouble by assuming with the JDD his opposition to abortion, a “personal conviction”. He had spent the rest of the campaign defending himself from wanting to call into question the Veil law.
“The bigger it is, the more it’s acceptable”
The right knows it: on these themes, the words of François-Xavier Bellamy are dissected, each microphone raised is a trap. Too bad if he never brandished his conservative ideas as a standard. What does it matter if he insists on European issues and wants to defend his unanimously praised record as an MEP. When an image is attached to you, it is difficult to get rid of it. “Why do you think Macron is throwing this at us now?,” an LR leader annoys. “The bigger it is, the more it passes.”
François-Xavier Bellamy swears to better control his public expression, experience requires. In 2019, he took advice from Bruno Retailleau to polish his public expression. “He asked me: ‘How would you argue?'”, remembers the Vendéen. We discussed the possibility of developing an argument that does not betray convictions and that he is not attacked by those who hold different convictions.” This was not enough. The right is waiting to see and fears that a departure from the road does not distract it from the moderate electorate.