saying that she no longer finds himself in a “curled” party and “on a very right -handed positioning”, the mayor of the fourth city of France decided to resume his independence.
By Philippe Gagnebet (Toulouse, correspondent)
He will not vote for any of the candidates in the running for the Presidency of the Republicans (LR), in early December. Member of the Union for a popular movement (UMP), from its creation in 2002, the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, is not found in the proposals of any of the three candidates for the president of the party, whether it be Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau or Aurélien Pradié. “Everyone has a part of truth, but none federates enough,” said the councilor of the fourth city in France, in an interview with Figaro , published Monday, November 7 , in which he announces his decision to leave LR.
For him, the right formation “is in an impasse”, after having “curled up [ee] on a very right -handed positioning” and having “abandoned” the center. However “it was the ambition of the UMP, then of the Republicans, to bring together in a large party all the sensitivities of the right and the center”, underlines this finance controller, also president of Toulouse Métropole. In his eyes, “this LR right -up strategy” had as “poun [er] many center -right voters to join the macronist camp and that has in no way prevented the dynamics of the extreme right vote” .
“affected”
Very hard with the management of his now ex-party, even if he says he leave him “without controversy” and at the end of an “old reflection”, Mr. Moudenc also considers that he abandoned ” The urban electorate “, focusing on its speech” only on rurality and small cities “. “This choice of sociological narrowness adding to that of political narrowness is unhappy on the electoral level”, according to him. Successively municipal councilor, regional and departmental councilor, mayor of Toulouse from 2004 to 2008, after the resignation of Philippe Douste-Blazy, he had found the mayor’s chair in 2014 after a socialist mandate. Re -elected in 2020, the elected official of 62 has always claimed to be “Christian and European Democratic centrism” like his mentor in politics, Dominique Baudis, former mayor of the city from 1983 to 2001.
After Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, joined Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe, in 2021, Jean-Luc Moudenc was the last mayor classified on the right among the ten largest cities in France. As early as 2015, he had left the departmental presidency of LR, before positioning himself “compatible Macron”, in early 2022, without saying “macronist”. In the aftermath of the legislative elections, Mr. Moudenc, the municipal majority of which is already made up of elected LR and Renaissance, had called to “not blindly oppose” the presidential majority. Monday evening, President LR of Haute-Garonne, Laurence Arribagé, also assistant in charge of sports at the Toulouse town hall, said he understood her decision. “He seemed to be affected,” she says. He has always been faithful to LR and his candidates. He does not leave the party of Gaieté de Coeur. “
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