At Les Républicains, a congress and many unknowns

It will happen “in family”. The members of the Republicans have spoken: they will nominate their candidate for the presidential election internally. An open primary funeral formalized by Christian Jacob Saturday. But before the members’ vote, on December 4, several questions remain. We take stock.

• Who can apply to members during the congress?

Candidates who wish to run for the LR investiture will have to collect 250 sponsorships from elected officials from thirty different departments. They will also have to recognize in writing “the values ​​of the right and the center”. The deadline for submitting applications will be determined in the coming days or weeks.

Four candidates have already accepted the principle of a vote of the members to designate the candidate supported by LR. “I will be,” said Valérie Pécresse to the Sunday newspaper, yet partisan until the last moment of an open primary. Same story on the side of
Michel barnier,
by Eric Ciotti and of
Philippe Juvin.

• What will Xavier Bertrand do?

Unlike the other declared candidates, Xavier Bertrand did not react to Christian Jacob’s speech, preferring to tweet abouta concert by Patrick Bruel in Saint-Quentin of … the
bean festival in Soissons. The one who repeated for many months that he did not intend to submit to an open primary “will very soon formalize his request for support to his political family by mail”, confirms to 20 Minutes its spokesperson, Dominique Estrosi-Sassone. With the choice of a congress, “LR members have proven him right”, relishes Senator LR from the Alpes-Maritimes, adding that “the primary was a machine to divide, a machine to lose”.

The support of his former party would consolidate the presidential candidacy of Xavier Bertrand, in particular from a financial point of view. But the hope of the Bertrand camp is to benefit from a dubbing without confrontation with Pécresse and the others. “What we want is that we arrive on December 4 at a congress of rally, that it is not a congress of confrontation”, says Dominique Estrosi-Sassone.

“He poses as a unifier. He wants to win and will win his political family ”, assures Olivier Peccaud, senator from Oise. According to an Ifopp poll published in Sunday Newspaper, the President of the Hauts-de-France region would be the right-wing candidate best placed to beat his opponents in 2022.

• What is this “anti-Zemmour clause”?

“There is no anti-Zemmour clause”, we assure LR. The new statutes of the party nevertheless provide, in article 37, the possibility of refusing a candidate for nomination. The amendment specifies that an internal “control body” will be responsible “for the validation of the electorate, the admissibility of candidacies with regard in particular to their compatibility with the values ​​of the right and the center and the sincerity of the results”. A clause which is therefore “not reserved for Eric Zemmour”, we decipher at the party headquarters. “It also and above all prevents crazy applications, it is not made for [lui] specifically. “

The question of a possible participation of the polemicist seems definitively settled. “He will not be able to participate in our process. “Eric Zemmour is not part of our political family”, recalled again last Saturday the boss of LR. For his part, the polemicist continues to maintain the vagueness of a presidential candidacy. This Sunday, he was not kind to Les Républicains, presenting them as “a party of notable centrists” which he accuses of having “betrayed the right” Gaullist, which he claims to be.

• What reaction among the centrists?

This closed primary, which de facto excludes the traditional allies of the UDI and the Centrists, “will not delight the voters of the center and the center-right,” political scientist Pascal Perrineau, former director of Cevipof, told 20 Minutes. Hervé Morin’s reaction was not long in coming. The president of the Centrists is “sorry” for the choice of LR, lambasting in
Le Figaro a candidate designated by “fewer voters than environmentalists”.

Valérie Pécresse announced on Monday on BFMTV her intention to “present [s]a candidacy for the UDI and the centrists ”. At this stage, the UDI counts nominate their own candidate in mid-November. Discussions should nevertheless take place this week between
Jean-Christophe Lagarde, the party boss, and Christian Jacob.