A photo of all the smiles. Rachida Dati shared on social media this Wednesday morning a coffee with some of her lieutenants willing to fight for the municipal elections. And the Macronists are very rare: only the Parisian deputy Sylvain Maillard and the minister delegate for Europe Benjamín Haddad appear at his side.
And with good reason: Horizons’ chosen Pierre-Yves Bournazel, Paris advisor for almost two decades, was officially sworn in by Renaissance this Tuesday afternoon.
“At one point we had to decide and we chose the reason. Do we really want to work with someone who stuck a knife in our back? We decided no,” explains one of the members of the Renaissance political committee.
Support for Rachida Dati is almost achieved
A few weeks ago it was still expected that the Minister of Culture would be the LR-Renacimiento candidate in the capital.
Was it ultimately Rachida Dati’s style, considered very divisive, that worked against her? His judicial problems, with a trial in September 2026 for corruption and influence peddling in the Renault-Ghosn affair – after the municipal elections then? In reality, everything was decided last September during the series of partial legislative elections in the constituency that overlaps the 5th and 6th arrondissements of Paris.
This territory, Macronist since 2017, was the subject of a confrontation last August between former Prime Minister Michel Barnier and Rachida Dati, who had once considered running there. Her candidacy would have had the merit of guaranteeing that Renaissance would obtain a replacement who would then take the place of the Minister of Culture in the Assembly, not willing to give up her portfolio.
The accounts are not there
Unfortunately: the Parisian elected official finally backed down in exchange for the right-wing investiture in Paris. Michel Barnier was largely elected, further reducing the number of Renaissance deputies in the capital. Of 18 electoral districts, only 5 remain Macronist.
“Investing in Pierre-Yves Bournazel is our way of reminding ourselves not to be taken for fools,” shouts a head of the local Parisian Renaissance committee.
Especially since the list of distribution of positions in the Paris Council and in the lists of district heads between LR and Macronists has been awaited for days. Enough to fear that, ultimately, the Parisian right will be better served than the Macronists.
Pierre-Yves Bournazel, for his part, got into shape by offering 55% of the Paris Council seats and half of the district list leaders. The figures have finally convinced Gabriel Attal, who maintains polar relations with Rachida Dati.
“A lost movement”
At the meeting of the investiture commission this Tuesday afternoon, only two people opposed the investiture of this close friend of Édouard Philippe, elected in the capital for almost two decades. They are Minister Aurore Bergé and former deputy Marie Guévenoux.
Elected in Yvelines, where a municipal agreement between LR and Renaissance has been underway for months, Aurore Bergé, who began her career on the right, clearly preferred not to offend Bruno Retailleau’s party.
As for the handful of Renaissance elected officials in the capital who still support him, we are determined to take responsibility as Benjamin Haddad did. The Macronist re-elected in the 16th district of Paris, a territory very favorable to the Minister of Culture, thus points out Édouard Philippe’s position of refusing to support Pierre-Yves Bournazel.
“How are we going to explain to our activists that we are going to make a losing move by supporting a candidate who calls for the president to resign?” explains the Minister Delegate for Europe, in reference to the comments reiterated several times by the former Prime Minister who called for the departure of Emmanuel Macron.
Response from Paris MP and councilor Catherine Ibled: “These are local elections. We are not here to talk about national considerations.”
Under surveillance
However, demonstrating that trust only reigns half-heartedly, Minister David Amiel invited the Horizons candidate at City Hall not to “strictly participate in any of Horizons’ unbearable attacks against the President of the Republic.”
Another support from Rachida Dati, the deputy Sylvain Maillard. After retiring from his duties as president of the Paris Federation, the Parisian chose another angle of attack to explain his support for Rachida Dati: the lack of notoriety of the candidate now branded as a Macronist.
“I have never heard anyone on the street talk to me about Pierre-Yves Bournazel,” laments the elected official in the columns of Le Parisien. “If we want to win, we have to support the strongest candidate,” he still insists.
However, the Parisians have shown on numerous occasions that notoriety is no guarantee of winning. From Philippe Séguin to Benjamin Griveaux to Jack Lang, who finally gave up before even officially entering the ball, Paris has long been the graveyard of national ambitions. Rachida Dati had also lost widely in 2020 against Anne Hidalgo by obtaining only 34% of the votes in the second round. The 2026 elections, however, will take place in a different electoral context, with the adoption of the “PLM” law, which reforms municipal elections in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
“It doesn’t change my campaign”
The Paris agreement also has the merit of clarifying the situation in other large French cities where an agreement between Horizons and Renaissance could also be signed. This could be the case of Bordeaux, Lille and Dijon.
Now it remains to be seen what the campaign dynamics will be around the Horizons-Renaissance candidate. Can he surprise by abandoning the planned match between the socialist Emmanuel Grégoire, former first deputy of Anne Hidalgo, and Rachida Dati? Or, on the contrary, would it be an obstacle to LR’s victory like Agnès Buzyn’s campaign was in 2020?
“It doesn’t change my life, it doesn’t change my campaign,” Rachida Dati explained during a walk through the streets of Paris this Wednesday. Before asking Gabriel Attal to “explain himself”. Here is the official release of the Battle of Paris.
Source: BFM TV
