The former Republicans member announced on Wednesday 1 December his rallying to Horizons, the party of the former Prime Minister.
Le Monde with AFP
Like a last foot to his old party. The former member of the Republicans (LR) Christian Estrosi announced Wednesday 1 December his rallying to Horizons, the party of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, the first day of the Congress of LR for the Investiture in the presidential.
“By today joining the Horizons Party, I register with the only political organization that can legitimize claim the legacy of the RPR and the UMP,” said the mayor of Nice during a Public meeting in his city, alongside Edouard Philippe.
“Lépine competition of the radicality”
He who is also president of the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis took advantage of this opportunity to criticize “the drift of LR”, which “made our voters aphones”. “And they are well gone to make them mute,” he added, according to Nice-morning . The Republican Congress, which takes place until Saturday, December 4th? “A hepper competition of radicality”, according to Christian Estrosi, who has found a common point between the candidates of LR and the extreme right polemicist Eric Zemmour, now officially declared candidate:
“They defend the same theories as the great replacement. Some say even ready to vote for a candidate whose xenophobic and misogynic words are contrary to the country’s values.”
The criticisms of Christian Estrosi with regard to his former party recall those of the President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, Renaud Muselier, who decided to slam the door of the party the Republicans, Wednesday, November 24 . The day before, the latter announced its support to Xavier Bertrand for the Party Congress, in particular in particular at Eric Ciotti, which he described as “false nose” of the far right. While the five candidates are trying to preserve the party’s unity during this campaign by avoiding the invectives, Xavier Bertrand then has simply refused the support of Mr. Muselier. The next day, Mr. Muselier announced his departure from the LR party, evoking in particular “a real problem concerning our position against the extreme right”.
“A” at the same time “intolerable”
Last October, the mayor of Nice had already called the right, in a tribune published in the Sunday newspaper, to “fight all his forces” the farmist farmist. Mr. Estrosi believed that “it would have been on the right, which he intends to siphon the voters, to lead the response”. But “she has deserted alas this fight,” he regretted.
The elected Niçois had left the LR party in May 2021, a few weeks of the regional. “I’m going to it,” he said in an interview granted in Figaro , pointing the blur of relationships between its party and the far right. “Republicans must, from my point of view, say clearly, that in all circumstances and in all elections, they will train at the far right before anything else. The in-between, and I dare to say the “At the same time”, on this issue, is intolerable because it insults our values, “said Mr. Estrosi.
Within LR, many saw this announcement a “clarification”. For them, it’s been a long time since the mayor of Nice “is in fact no longer within the party, supporting as soon as he can Emmanuel Macron”, when they “fight him at the national level”. At the end of August 2020, Christian Estrosi had already called the right to make an agreement with Emmanuel Macron before the presidential election of 2022.