A clear victory and without burrs that give hope to the right by 2027. Very chosen to the head of the Republicans this May 18 with 74% of the votes, Bruno Retailleau can now be projected to an Elysee destination, at least on paper.
“No one will say it out loud, but such a score necessarily places it in the center of the game for the future, even more in a context in which everyone looks there and where the victories in a name have become very rare,” analyzes a LR senator.
“An objective on the back”
Now at the head of a party that has a dozen ministers and almost 170 parliamentarians, Bruno Retailleau can boast of taking his steps in those of Nicolas Sarkozy who had used the Beauvau place and his party to reach the Elysée two years later.
But in a political game that seems more open than ever to the right and in Macronie between the candidacy of Edouard Philippe and the wishes of Gabriel Attal, without a doubt of entering too fast in the sand.
“The sooner you enter the race, the longer you have a goal in the back,” summarizes, abrupt, a deputy of LR.
No small horses running for the moment
“Everything in his time,” he launched the new number 1 on the right with great caution this Sunday night at the set TF1. Before explaining a few hours later in CNEWS-Europe 1 I wish “to be the artisan of victory” in 2027, without officially applying.
An entry in the campaign would be wrong to open the ball of the suitors internally, starting with the president of Hauts-De-France Xavier Bertrand. “Our big mistake would be that we return to the war of stables and candidates now,” says Senator LR Max Brisson.
“Our work is not saying who is a candidate, but finding new ideas that will then feed a presidential program,” he also delayed the Dalloz Dalloz de Marie-Christine Dinbox.
“We will have to be damn to work”
Therefore, in the menu during the coming weeks: the first appointments in important positions in the movement and a strategic advice to work in the municipal elections on Tuesday.
“Translation: we are going to talk about everything, except the presidential elections. It is anything except won and we start from far away,” observes a ministerial advisor, who judges that with “zero idea in 10 years, we will have to be damn to work for 2027”.
Is this ardor really enough to calm ambitions internally? The mayor of Cannes David Lisnard, who, however, was shown with Bruno Retailleau in the campaign, begged on Monday to the organization of an open primary to designate the candidate in 2027 that would go to the reconquest.
However, the new head of the right has campaigned in recent months for a reserved consultation only for LR activists.
The Philippe danger
“No one is deceived by the chapels of the other,” said Dalloz Marie-Christine Dalloz.
“We will be happy on Sunday night and until Monday, it will be the beginning of the annoyance,” said a close friend of Bruno Retilleau a few days before his victory.
But for the moment, it is less the internal atmosphere that seems to worry the tenant of the Beauvau place than the candidacy of Édouard Philippe in 2027, already thrown in the race for months.
“I did not do all that to be abdicated and we put ourselves in this or that color,” I did not hesitate to warn Bruno Retailleau on Monday. During the end of the LR campaign, Laurent Wauquiez also had to explain that Interior Minister would not hesitate to retire for the mayor of Le Havre a few months before the presidential elections, a survey in support of his demonstration.
Far from folding the game
At the moment, only the former Emmanuel Macron prime minister among the right -wing candidates and Macronie manages to qualify in the second round with a score of around 15%. Bruno Retailleau is between 7.5 and 10% of the votes.
If these scores should be taken with care almost two years with the elections, they give grain to grind those who advocate a joint candidacy of the LR and the horizons.
“We will see where we will be in September 2026. If we are very late, all this will be discussed,” observes a chosen right.
Édouard Philippe is still well determined to maintain this scenario at all costs when looking for the lands of Bruno Retilleau. During a speech in Marseille, in the midst of LR activists this Saturday, Édouard Philippe played the gift of Regalian, accusing the justice of being “hypocritical.”
25% target
“Is Bruno Retailleau still solid, manages to eat in Édouard Philippe or not if he begins to go to our issues? Everything moves so fast. Today’s truth is probably not that of tomorrow,” analyzes a macronista deputy on the right.
“We, our goal is to increase between 20 and 25% in the coming months,” said Senator LR Max Brisson.
Such a leap that would almost multiply by 2 his score in first round surveys is probably only possible in case of a clear place of success Beauvau. At the moment, Bruno Retailleau only has a limited power of action, core by a very divided national assembly and a prime minister that is not in his political color.
“His victory gives him an additional point and a new room for Maniouver,” he wants to believe that former deputy Lr Pierre-Henri Dumont when for the moment the specific results are still waiting.
“The day he thinks he has more to lose than win in the government, there will be, there is no doubt,” he judges a senator LR.
With a risk: that his departure from the government and his return to the Senate make him move to the simple presidential range among many others. “We will see what he has in his stomach at that time,” already releases Laurent Wauquiez.
Source: BFM TV
