An election that should have had the appearance of a health course and that finally became a nightmare. The president of the deputies Les Républicins was largely defeated by Bruno Retailleau this Sunday, May 18 in the internal competition to take the front of the correct party collecting only 25.7% of the votes. Back in a campaign that laminated Laurent Wauquiez.
However, he had begun under the best auspices for him last September, without any competitor. At that time, the law has no longer had a chef since Eric Ciotti, who was then the president of the LR, joined Marine Le Pen during the surprised legislative elections in June.
An election that should have only one candidate
With less than 10% of the deputies in the hemicle, there are few who request the head of a demonized part. But for those who became president of elected officials in the Assembly, the conquest of the party that led from 2017 to 2019 is a way of having in their hands the finances of the movement and taking an appointment for the presidential election of 2027.
The appointment of Michel Barnier in Matignon and Bruno Retailleau, until now unknown to the general public, however, the situation changes. Back to the government after 12 years of the ministerial halls, the correct taste.
“We risk having only the Ministry of speech in the absence of a parliamentary majority, so we must write quickly and strongly in opinion and take advantage of it to prepare the presidential elections,” summarizes a ministerial advisor.
Depart
Message received 5 of 5 by the new tenant of the interior that occupies the groove he had prepared when he was president of the LR senators by fighting the irregular immigration of his battle horse.
In an executive with few political weights, the transplant takes very quickly and allows it to explode in the surveys. What pushes those around him to hurry to enter the race for the presidency of the right, to the disgust of Laurent Wauquiez, who sees the danger coming.
“There was an agreement between us, it is up to you to embody the right to government, it is up to me to rebuild our political family. If you break this agreement, you will have the responsibility of illuminating a war of the bosses,” said the president of the LR agents during a head dinner.
“We box in the void”
Translation of a relative of Bruno Retailleau the next day: “Laurent Wauquiez wanted Bercy, he did not have it. He realizes that he can even become president of Lr. The guy says he will come out of a pressure blow. But too many people want Bruno and Aille,” starting with the president of the Gérard Larcher Senate.
Just a week after these parties in Beauvau, the former Vendée senator officially enters the race. Promised, the Minister of the Interior will not be “to the game of small prayers” and “will not rule against any of its competitors.”
“We always say that when we enter the campaign. But he, very quickly, understands that he will keep it and complicate the situation because that means we are inclined in a vacuum,” he regrets a support from Laurent Wauquiez.
“The problem is that he has an exhibition of the media when it is very difficult to score points and even more when his competitor ignores it,” one of his relatives sighs.
Up to three meetings per day
Bruno Retailleau has continued to multiply on the ground, pressed by a series of several facts and speeches almost quasiid. As for the presidential surveys of 2027, to take precautions for almost two years with the elections, the Vendéen does not double the game, but is largely placed against Laurent Wauquiez.
Enough to push the former president of the Auverne-Rhône-Alpes region to adopt “the steam strategy” playing the field letter with at least 2 meetings per day or even sometimes 3. And there is no matter of forgetting to take the time to drink with the activists.
“It is not complicated, we are the challengers, so we throw all our strengths in the race,” says a deputy of LR, with the maneuver to “make letters” of members who will vote in the competition.
The bets are high: their number is around 40,000, very Far from the 139,000 voters During the internal primaries to designate its presidential candidate in 2021.
“Sometimes it becomes a little harassment. In March, we were closing almost the exits to make sure that no one left the room without having taken their card,” says Laurent Wauquiez’s support.
“Little Moral”
With some success: the number of activists tripled in a few months with almost 20% of the forces directly from the Auverne-Rhône-Alpes region, headed by the president of the deputies of LR.
“Is that enough when we are very late for the moment?
But Laurent Wauquiez plays the letter of positive attitude and says that “surely he will win” as he repeatedly trusts with, in his manga, arguments he considers unstoppable.
The elected representative of Haute-Loire has few options against Bruno Retilleau, who can boast of receiving support from everything right as they have tenors and without his campaign really taking media.
The threat of a “diluted right in macronism”
But the meeting of dozens of LR activists every day allows you to refine your attack angles. Faced with activists, he never stops saying that Bruno Retailleau would not have time to be a good Interior Minister and a full -time LR president. And pity if Nicolas Sarkozy had so well in 2005 that he became president of the Republic in 2007.
Another strategy: attacking the Interior Minister considering his feet and cuffs linked to a macronista government, prevented him from having real margins of action.
“I saw people who wanted to vote with a retailleau and once they explained that we could not do anything because we are still directed by François Bayrou, who supported François Hollande in 2012, that makes them think,” says a local chosen official, Laurent Wauquiez support.
“The right will be diluted in macronism,” says Laurent Wauquiez, thus leaving the doubt of a possible retirement of Bruno Retailleau in 2027 to leave the right place to the right to Édouard Philippe.
The OQTF in Saint-Pierre-Et-Miququelon “that is discussed” of “
Enough to raise the thermometer a bit between the two men who speak several times by interposed means. But the results of Bruno Retailleau can still be waiting and camouflets are linked in their confrontation with Algeria, the maneuver does not seem to be reversed the steam.
Laurent Wauquiez, therefore, decides to go to the highest visit by putting on the table a measure that had never approached with its lieutenants and that arouses skepticism to the national demonstration: the shipping “of dangerous foreigners” under the obligation to leave the territory (OQTF) to Saint-Pierre-Et-Miququelon.
The message is clear: show LR activists that Bruno Retilleau symbolizes “France’s inability to solve this problem”, accusing it “of passively accepting that foreign criminals are released in our streets” as he explains.
“I am not very fanatic of the idea, but at least, it was spoken,” he supports it with his lips as a deputy of encouragement.
“Desperate”
To see: “I think a measure like that, attracts our activists, but can we win a presidential choice saying that? I don’t think and our militants want us to win at the end,” says an elected official, relatively neutral in the race.
In the Bruno Retailleau camp, we judged that the competition won definitively at that time. “When you leave that, you are at the end of what you could say and that you are beginning to be desperate. And that makes the militants who appreciate you even.”
While some pronounced in Laurent Wauquiez’s entourage of other “proposals to make people think”, the president of LR deputies does not put a piece on the machine.
He has just called a week just before the opening of activists for “a health cord” around France Rebelde during a BFMTV debate against Manuel Bompard, coordinator of the movement. As for his hand, he stretched towards Sarah Knafo, the only European deputy for the reconquest to launch “a great right meeting,” he falls.
“The end of the campaign seemed a bit sad, we became empty, without much to put on the table. Bruno Retilleau could afford it, not us,” recognizes a deputy of LR.
“A triple stroke” to give up 2027
With a symbol: the last important campaign meeting will have been at the camp of your opponent at Boulogne-Billancourt last weekend. So now the issue of Laurent Wauquiez suite arises. Will you accept Bruno Retailleau’s very probable extended hand that could offer you a position of Vice President of the party?
“You have to give him time to digest what happened. It is a great blow to the head that takes,” admits a LR senator. However, some are concerned about a clear rest with movement.
“Will you really give up your candidacy dream in 2027? Does he say he has a chance with us pushing an internal primary or has to leave?” He asks a deputy.
“I would have to have a triple stroke to give up the presidential elections,” observes a Paris advisor who says he is “worried.”
Among the deputies of LR, some found a nickname of “human bomb”, called by a tenant of hostages in a kindergarten in 1993. At the risk of exploiting the right to set up their own store?
Source: BFM TV
