After having the image of a filing holder, the president of LR reveals a more round facet. This does not prevent him from acting with authority, as when he sanctioned Aurélien Pradié, Saturday February 18.
by Alexandre Pedro
For Eric Ciotti, a good day begins with the reading of Nice-Matin. But Friday, February 17, the president of the Les Républicains (LR) party fails to spit out his coffee to discover the interview granted by Aurélien Pradié to the regional daily. The title gives the Ton : “The government takes the Republicans for idiots.” Further, the deputy for the stirring batch “The discipline with variable geometry” in LR. Inevitably, the premises of the stage, at the head of the right -wing formation since December, takes criticism for him.
The next day, Eric Ciotti rested him from his post as an executive vice-president of the party in a lapidary press release. “It was latent for a few days, put forward his friend Eric Paugé, deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes like him. Pradié fired too much on the elastic. In the morning, he gives this interview, in the evening he is applauded by the” rebellious ” In the assembly. Eric’s patience has limits when he sought to integrate it into all discussions on this pension reform. “
At the end of January, on Europe 1, the new troublemaker of the right says he does not see a “leader” in his political family. The chef in question has little comment and lets him know. In a party with Bonapartist culture, the 57 -year -old man has the lack of appearing as a non -presidential president and keeping the place warm for another: Laurent Wauquiez. How then to establish his authority?
The government will not give him time to change the decoration of his office, rue de Vaugirard. Barely elected president of LR, Eric Ciotti saw “a baptism of fire with a heavy and complex file like that of pensions”, in his words. But he does not complain. This cerebral has been underestimated for too long, reduced to the role of “right-handed” of service or former filing holder of Christian Estrosi, so as not to appreciate being today at the heart of all negotiations.
When others dream of the Elysée, he has always imagined herself in Beauvau, Minister of the Interior, the first cop in France. At the risk of drawing your own caricature. “It is someone who has forged an image, but it is more open than he can seem there,” concedes the leader of the Senators LR, Bruno Retailleau, his unhappy opponent as president. “I feel that the gaze of my interlocutors changes, confides the person concerned in the world. I was caricatured in this image, security, order, but it had started to change during the last primary [the internal ballot on the right For the presidential election, in December 2021, when he was opposed to Valérie Pécresse]. I had shown that I could speak of economy and be credible. “
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