In an invitation from the “Grand Jury-RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Public Senate”, LR Euro MP hopes to see the former Interior Minister designated as the party’s candidate next Sunday, after the party member vote.
Is the right ready to come together for the presidential election? With one year before the Elysée election, whose calendar remains unclear despite planned spring events, the 120,000 members of The Republicans (LR) are called upon, on April 18 and 19, to choose the method of designating their champion. Presented at the end of March in the political bureau, three options will be offered to party members: designate their leader, Bruno Retailleau, opt for a form of closed congress – only for party members – or organize an open primary for sympathizers. While this internal consultation aims to prepare LR for 2027, it highlights the persistent divisions within the right, torn between personal rivalries and strategic disagreements. This is evidenced by the choice of the mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, to leave the movement, as well as the recurrent attacks by LR group leader, Laurent Wauquiez, and the president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand.
Whether the issue of the primary pits the president of the AMF against the deputy of Haute-Loire, on one side, proponents of a broad designation, and the former Minister of Labor on the other, opposed to this method, all three judge the process to be too favorable to Bruno Retailleau, right from the start. Especially since the latest statements from LR’s number two, François-Xavier Bellamy, may support these reservations. Invited this Sunday to the “Grand Jury-RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Public Senate”, the Euro MP indicated that he would vote for the senator from Vendée “so that he could become our candidate”. “This is part of the tradition of the French right: we have at the head of our party a man who can represent our ideas in the presidential election and win,” he asserts. While making sure to respond to critics of this vote: “We have never had such a transparent and democratic designation method”, François-Xavier Bellamy insisted.
Bruno Retailleau is fully prepared to participate in a primary if he were to be designated by our members to represent them, even in an intermediate stage, according to François-Xavier Bellamy during the “Grand Jury” show on RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Public Senate.
Nevertheless, the philosopher does not rule out the possibility of a right-wing primary, even if the former Interior Minister were chosen next Sunday, after the party member vote. “If, among the leading candidates claiming to embody the right, all declared themselves in favor of a primary, Bruno Retailleau is fully prepared to participate in it if he were to be designated by our members to represent them, even in an intermediate stage,” assured the Strasbourg-elected official, balancing between two views on this matter. “From the moment Édouard Philippe does not want a primary, we cannot propose to our members to vote to compel him to submit to a process to which he does not comply,” insisted François-Xavier Bellamy, open to this option at a later stage “to confront him”. Not without a touch of irony. “Because Édouard Philippe will have to take responsibility for Emmanuel Macron’s legacy,” he is convinced that Bruno Retailleau would triumph in this competition. When the former prime minister “enters the atmosphere, he will have to answer for his legacy at Matignon. The primary would allow us to compare our projects but also our past actions,” he emphasizes, while the LR president did not rule out this weekend, in Le Figaro, going through this step – provided that the president of Horizons also submits to it. Is there a risk that the latter will prevail over the former? François-Xavier Bellamy refuses to consider such a scenario.
