Regretting the “right-wing” of the party, the mayor of the pink city “withdraws” from LR

While LR will have a new president in December, Jean-Luc Moudenc believes that “the three candidates only want to anchor the movement on the right”. “The center is therefore abandoned”, regrets the mayor of Toulouse, who defines himself as a centrist Christian Democrat and European. Faced with this observation, he therefore decided to leave the Republicans, without however joining another movement.

“I am retiring from LR”, he announced in an interview with Figaro, published on Monday. The mayor of the 4th city of France, where the municipal majority brings together Walkers and Republicans, also believes that his political formation “is at an impasse”.

A strategy of isolation that “leads nowhere”

“The party has curled up on a very right-wing position. (…) This pushed many center-right voters to join the Macronist camp and this in no way prevented the dynamics of the far-right vote, ”he analyzes.

While welcoming the qualities of the three candidates for the presidency of LR – Eric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau, Aurélien Pradié -, the Toulouse elected official considers that they “have in common that they want the Republicans to remain alone, without concluding an alliance. I consider that this strategy of isolation leads to nothing”. For Jean-Luc Moudenc, in the name of the national interest, the right must “dialogue with the majority, otherwise we will witness a permanent blockage of our institutions, with 49-3, a permanent rat race, even dissolution of the Assembly”.

Good points sent to Edouard Philippe

His decision, on the other hand, is the fruit of “old reflection”, and the election among the Republicans “gives him the opportunity to concretize it”. Jean-Luc Moudenc also does not wish to join Horizons, but sees in Edouard Philippe a presidential candidate, if he manages “to recompose a political space bringing together the right and the center, which are now split”. Aged 62, re-elected in 2020, he was successively a member of the CDS, the UMP, then the Republicans.