The ex-finalist of the primary of the right brought together around 4,000 supporters in Levens less than three months before the election of the president of the Republicans who will notably oppose it to Bruno Retailleau.
Le Monde with AFP
“The right in the heart”: it is the slogan that Eric Ciotti chose to try to take the lead of the Republicans. Candidate for the presidency of LR on a line of firmness, the ex-finalist of the primary of the right displayed his ability to mobilize the militant base on Saturday September 10 in Levens, his stronghold of the Alpes-Maritimes, where he gathered some 4,000 people. “Here, my friends are consistent, in the straight line, the clear line,” he said.
Huge pavan tables in Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, a scene decorated with a gigantic tricolor flag and a welcome from the cries of “Eric President”: the traditional “meeting of the friends of Eric Ciotti” looked like of force demonstration, three months from the election of the party president.
His main opponent, on December 3, will be the boss of the Senators LR, Bruno Retailleau, supported by many elected officials. Saturday, Eric Ciotti also wanted to display his supporters: deputies Eric Pauget and Michèle Tabarot, the president of the LR young people, Guihem Carayon, the mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard…
But he recalled it during a press point: “It was the militants who will decide.” And he assured having their “confidence”, strong of the mobilization in his Federation of the Alpes-Maritimes which was again the First of France with 3,500 members.
“Authority, freedom, identity, work”
For an LR executive, “the election will be played on two factors: notoriety, and there, Ciotti crushes the match, and the ability to make cards”. Saturday evening in Levens, a table had been installed at the entrance to the Grand Pré to collect party registrations, and each spectator found on his plate a membership form, before dinner in the open air to the sound of a pop group .
Already last year, the number of members had been decisive in the LR primary. Eric Ciotti recalled the surprise that his accession had then constituted in the final: “Little would have predicted the result. I trust the common sense of activists.”
In this election, the deputy intends to defend a “faithful and unambiguous” roadmap, with the compass “authority, freedom, identity, work”, even if he wanted to broaden his message to the economy, in advocating a drop in taxes “at least 125 billion euros in a five -year period”.
The risk of a leak towards horizons
Some at LR fear an overly muscular line, which could scare away elected officials and sympathizers towards the Horizons movement of Edouard Philippe. Eric Ciotti sweeps the argument: “We have already lost 90 % of the voters who had voted Sarkozy in 2017.” For him, “the republican right is strong because it assumes, that it does not give in to the correct politically . This may be why we contained the push of political parties further on the right. “
Faced with the risk of “disappearance” of his political family, he gives the medical metaphor, advocating not “homeopathy”, but “shock therapy” with “a real rupture project”. If he takes the head of LR, he intends to “designate the candidate for the next presidential election”, already displaying his favorite: Laurent Wauquiez.