Suspended from the Republicans like the other five LR members who joined the Lecornu II government, Annie Genevard defends her position and her choice to continue her contract at the Ministry of Agriculture. “In the face of crises, threats and challenges, farmers asked for stability,” he defends himself in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche published this Sunday, October 26. “I made the decision to stay because the Prime Minister offered it to me and because a captain does not abandon ship in a storm.”
Annie Genevard assures that remaining in the government “was not an easy decision.” “But at some point you have to ask yourself where you are most useful,” he adds. “I didn’t choose comfort, but conviction. I chose to stay with the farmers.”
For the right, “the risk of division exists”
The suspension of Annie Genevard and other members of the Government called LR, such as Rachida Dati or Vincent Jeanbrun, was announced on Wednesday by the party leadership after a vote during a political office.
The latter, like the former Minister of the Interior and president of LR Bruno Retailleau, had previously spoken out in favor of non-participation in the Lecornu II government. While the LR deputies and their boss, Laurent Wauquiez, defended the opposite position.
While saying she “respects Bruno Retailleau’s decision,” Annie Genevard says she “believes” that Republicans can “defend (their) values by exercising their responsibilities.”
“In 2024 we collectively decided to enter the government to block the left and participate in the stability of the country. The conditions have not changed,” supports the minister, who “still believes in a right to government.”
Could this episode lead to a new internal war of which the right has the secret and from which it has suffered so many times? For Annie Genevard, also replaced by Senator Roger Karoutchi at the head of the LR investiture commission, “the risk of division exists” and “calls for a quick return to appeasement.”
For Wauquiez, “failing is never the right choice”
“Appease” is also the motto of Laurent Wauquiez in an interview published on Saturday by Ouest France. “We need to unite, appease and work together again,” argues the LR leader in the National Assembly, adding that “banning, excluding, suspending is never the right option.”
Recognizing that “these last weeks have not been easy”, Laurent Wauquiez considers that LR’s change of position on whether or not to participate in the government “has not been understood”: “people had the impression that we were fighting for positions, which gives a very bad image of the right, but we are not going to repeat it.”
“The important thing,” he adds immediately, “is that there is no fundamental opposition with Bruno Retailleau.”
Source: BFM TV
