In the square of the Bourbon Palace, in front of the French National Assembly, Eric Ciotti addresses the media to explain his decision to ally with the far-right party Marine Le Pen in view of the next legislative elections. At that moment, the environmentalist deputy Sandrine Rousseau interrupts the appearance, points to the glass door of the Los Republicanos headquarters and says to Ciotti: “What a shame, Mr. Ciotti. “It doesn’t deserve the name on that façade.”
It is just one more in the long list of criticisms that the leader of Los Republicanos (LR) has had to hear in the last 24 hours. The majority, coming from his own party colleagues, where Ciotti’s announcement has unleashed a political earthquake that has opened a deep toll and is far from over. On the social network
“Sometimes you convince people, sometimes you don’t, but you don’t betray them,” said the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, who was considered an ally of Ciotti within the party. On Monday afternoon, many of the Ciotti team’s advisors presented their resignation in rejection of the decision.
“If necessary, we will remove him from the office, which is the office of General De Gaulle’s heirs,” said deputy Aurelien Pradié on public television on Tuesday. “It’s a matter of time, he’s going to leave. He is no longer our leader,” he added.
Tension before the LR executive meeting
The vice president of the party, Annie Genevard, has called a meeting of the political bureau – the executive – of LR for this Wednesday afternoon to discuss Ciotti’s future within the party. According to several media outlets, the main point of the meeting is his expulsion from the conservative formation, based on several articles of the LR statute.
Now, Ciotti assures that those same statutes stipulate that only the president can call a meeting of the political bureau and, therefore, Wednesday’s meeting lacks legitimacy. And although the majority of party colleagues oppose a rapprochement with Le Pen’s extreme right, Ciotti assures that he has the “massive” support of the militancy. So in a statement on “It has no legal value.”
His entourage has also indicated to the AFP agency that he will not attend and has ordered the workers to close the doors of the headquarters. In response, members of the party executive stated that the meeting would take place in a location near the National Assembly.
The day before, after Ciotti’s announcement of his alliance with the extreme right, Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (AN), confirmed that his party would support “several dozen” of “outgoing” or “appointed” deputies by LR in the next legislative elections, without offering more details. The leader of the far-right party specified that he will continue his conversations with Ciotti “in the next few hours” to finalize the agreement.
Predictably, one of those candidates supported by the extreme right will be Ciotti himself, who will try to run for re-election in the same Alpes-Maritimes constituency in which he was elected by a narrow margin two years ago. In the European elections last Sunday, the Republicans list was fifth in votes (8.9%) in that territory, very far from AN, which went to 37.7%.
Macron presents himself as a response to the “extremes”
Meanwhile, three days after shaking up the French political scene by calling the elections early after the severe defeat of his coalition, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed in a long press conference that he is not considering resigning from the presidency of the Republic – a position which is not at stake in the electoral advance.
Macron has presented his liberal program as a response to the two blocs that include the extreme right and the left in view of the early legislative elections, which will be held in two rounds on June 30 and July 7, and has insisted that They have formed “unnatural alliances at both extremes that do not agree on anything (…) and are not ready to implement any program.”
“We are in a historic moment for our country,” said Macron, who has focused above all on attacking the proposals of the far-right National Rally, but also the coalition of left-wing and environmental parties that include La Francia Insumisa (LFI). by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
According to his analysis, the victory of AN in the European elections, in which he obtained 31.4% of the votes, compared to only 14.6% of his party, Renacimiento, is explained by an “angry” vote that he claims to have understood, and that will translate into a series of changes in its political priorities, and above all in an acceleration in its security policy.
