“I really didn’t believe it. And finally, she did it. She dares everything, it’s quite incredible.” Almost 24 hours after the formalization of Rachida Dati’s candidacy against Michel Barnier as part of a partial legislative in Paris, Republicans are designed by the election of the Minister of Culture, as a senator in BFMTV confiden.
On paper, the one that is already seen to the mayor of Paris is ready to dissent in front of the former prime minister, officially invested by his movement this Monday night.
“It is a bet, but it has many letters in your hand. And then facing her to run, Michel Barnier will have to follow the rhythm. An choice is never earned in advance, but it is playable,” observes a relative of former Nicolas Sarkozy minister.
A candidacy based on “misunderstandings”
Let’s go back for a few moments. In recent days, all eyes on the right have turned to the second district of the capital. The outgoing deputy, Jean Laussucq, relative of Rachida Dati, saw his election canceled by the Constitutional Council.
Very quickly, the former prime minister left the forest to demonstrate his interest. What bothers the Minister of Culture, who sees this arrival with a bad eye, since the constituency covers in part the seventh district, of which he is still mayor. Especially because the elected representative considers Michel Barnier as a possible plan B for the Paris City Council if it was avoided by the spectrum of judicial affairs and, in particular, their derivation to justice for “corruption” and “influence traffic.”
While leaving doubts about a possible candidacy, which became known by his excavator style has not immediately announced his entry into the campaign. But this Monday night, before the National Investigation Commission, Rachida Dati said it would be “any candidate” for this legislative. And it is a pity if she has never officially requested from her party and it was Michel Barnier who was officially appointed by the LR to represent them.
“For weeks, we have been feeling discomfort between Parisian law and Rachida Dati. His candidacy shows that there have been misunderstandings, not enough discussions and that he really would like to support his” subtitles in Senator LR Roger Karoutchi.
A simple confrontation?
Should we understand that his candidacy for legislative elections only intends to force the LR of capital to support it for municipal elections? The question even arises when some tenors of the Parisian right urged him to appear during an internal primary in the image of the mayor of the nineteenth -century Geoffroy Boulard and that others such as Senator Francis Szpiner plan to appear against it.
In any case, this is the hypothesis of a large part of the movement. Under the leadership of Bruno Retilleau, the new head of the party, the inauguration commission separated as a result of a press release that guarantees that the mayor of the seventh district was “the best position to embody the alternation” in Paris. What reassures the Minister of Culture and, ultimately, pushes her to withdraw her candidacy for legislative elections?
“She only knows how to walk through the balance of power, the coup. He discovers that it is not sufficiently supported to recover the City Council. Therefore, she turns her arm and works. And she will succeed in having everyone. The calculation trusts the political genius,” he judges an attached LR.
“Who believes that he really wants to become a deputy? No, he wants to become mayor of Paris. Of course, his pressure blow is just an exchange currency and in the end a lantern,” shares one of his colleagues, more laconic.
“If you get into the dance, it is because you believe in your possibilities”
However, facing Rachida Dati’s habits, with the remarkable exception of 2012, where in the same constituency, she had the risk of a dissident candidacy over former Prime Minister François Fillon, officially invested at that time by the right.
“The story looks like, but it has nothing to do,” says an elected Parisian of the Paris Change Group. In the document, the mayor of the seventh district has its possibilities, between a survey that will be assumed carefully that gives him chosen in the second round against Michel Barnier, a left that seeks at the moment a volunteer ready to frustrate the party of the Titans to the right and the rebirth that a candidate could not present. Not to mention that in the Rachida Dati camp, many judge that the age of its competitor, 74, is a serious disability.
Above all, Rachida Dati plays very big. In the case of a defeat in the legislative elections next October, its candidacy for municipal elections would be very committed.
“If he gets into the dance, it is because he believes in his chances of winning. Otherwise, he would not have gone there,” he acknowledges a member of the National Office of LR.
An atmosphere of “stinky balls”
From then on, several scenarios are the table. The first: former Nicolas Sarkozy Judges minister in the coming weeks that local is still very favorable for him despite the confrontation with Michel Barnier. Then he will officially request the Prefecture. Then it will open a campaign that can quickly resort to the massacre.
“They will be very dirty weeks, full of stinky balls. It does not matter if the next time we vote for you, it is 5 years later, but there, it will continue with the municipal elections. Nor should it be too bloody. We must not scare the voters,” he acknowledges a Councilor from Paris.
If Rachida Dati wins, he can take advantage of a beautiful launch ramp that could take his legal problems to the background. But if he loses and Michel Barnier Wins, his candidacy will have led in the wing. As for the possibility that the Minister of Culture loses just when the former prime minister, she has a whole nightmare for the law. For months, Bruno Retilleau said that the LRS has returned and that a very publicized defeat is not a good omen for municipal elections in Paris as in other parts of France.
“And above all, we could be sure that we would play for weeks the fratricidal wars of which we have the specialty. Frankly, if we can do without that before the next presidential elections, it would be good,” says a senator close to Michel Barnier.
The hope of an “agreement”
Second option: the retirement of Rachida Dati’s career at the end of August. It is the track favored by Agnès Evran, the president of the LR Federation of Paris, who hopes to “find at the beginning of the school year an agreement” with her.
Specifically, this would mean that all Elected officials would leave behind for the municipal elections and that the Parisian right undertook to moisten the shirt to win it. In return, Rachida Dati should give them space, even those with whom relationships are tense.
Third track: persist and sign your approach as a candidate to raise auctions and guarantee 100% of the support of the right, paralyzed by a possible Chiefs War. Even if that means retiring in the last straight line.
And the disaster scenario: maintain, lose and have to leave the race for the City Council.
“As soon as he believes that we decide for her, he bites. So I can’t say what he’s going to do until the end. Even she, I’m not sure I really know,” said a senator.
Source: BFM TV
