Elected at the head of LR with 53.7 % of the votes, Sunday, against Bruno Retailleau, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes must above all make the right party exist in opinion.
By Matthieu Goar
Oscillating between gravity and smiles, he was elected to make one of the most complicated jobs in French political life: to take out the right in the shadows. Sunday evening December 11, in a second rounder than expected, Eric Ciotti became president of the Les Républicains (LR) party with 53.7 % of the votes against Bruno Retailleau (46.3 %).
At the evening of this second round, LR avoided the first pitfall, that of the division. After having promised, in the 20 -hour newspaper of TF1, the return of a “firm right, which restores order to the street”, and a “right of freedom, which makes taxes decrease”, the new President of LR went to the party’s headquarters, where he was able to shake hands with Bruno Retailleau. No fratricidal confrontation this time.
But the mission remains thorny. Because, to try to get the party out of the slump, a colossal work awaits the new management team. “It’s a tough task, it’s a Herculean task,” said Mr. Retailleau a few minutes earlier.
The first of the sites is immense. In order not to be buried, the right must at least manage to exist in the debate of ideas and be audible by the French. On continuous information channels, on the markets, in conferences … relegated to an almost invisible opposition role, LR has been crushed for months. On the one hand by the announcements of power, on the other by the bustle of populist blocks. Since the legislative elections, no idea has passed the “wall” of public opinion. Without line, deputies do not know how to position themselves. The group in the National Assembly is both constructive on certain texts and in a frontal opposition on others, which makes everyone uncomfortable in the end.
“All work ideological to lead “
The electoral spring and the Congress of this fall have changed the spirits. Part of the executives today says that old recipes will no longer be enough. By promising to bring out the “Karcher” Sarkozyst during the presidential campaign, the party candidate, Valérie Pécresse, gave the impression that the right stuttering, while seeming to admit that the promises of the former LR officials had not been held .
“One of the lessons that can be drawn from it is that there is a whole ideological work to be carried out, believes Annie Gennevard, deputy of the Doubs and former president of the interim party. Because if we promise the same Something with the same words, with formulas that seem worn, there is a risk that the French no longer believe in it, when they have to awaken their interest. “
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