Two men, two political lines, two currents clash this weekend. The 91,110 members of the Les Républicains party will vote between Saturday and Sunday for the second round of the election of the party president between one of the two finalists: Bruno Retailleau or Eric Ciotti. In this final duel to take the lead of the right-wing political formation, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes leaves with a head start. He gathered 42.73% of the votes in the first round, against 34.45% for the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau.
“It’s a wide lead which has consolidated its status as favorite”, says its spokesman Eric Pauget, “serene and confident” before the second round. “I don’t see why people who did not vote for the favorite in the first round would do so in the second,” said Julien Aubert, support for Bruno Retailleau, who swears that “today is 50 /50, but the dynamic is ascending”.
Right “assumed” against right “without excess”
Members will make a choice between Eric Ciotti, very firm on security and immigration, and Bruno Retailleau, holding a conservative and liberal line. The two candidates agree on the refusal of any alliance with macronie and the promise of rallying. Eric Ciotti, who boasts of his loyalty to the RPR then to LR, defends a course “of the right assumed”, “refusing political correctness”. Bruno Retailleauhighly critical of Nicolas Sarkozy, promises him to “return the party to the members” consulted by referendum, with a “clearly right-wing” line although “without excess”.
One of the challenges for everyone is to succeed in capturing the 22% of the votes gathered by Aurélien Pradié on a program of “popular right” and renewal. Since Sunday, foot calls have multiplied. “The right must renew itself (…) this is what the voters who voted for Aurélien or for me said,” Bruno Retailleau assured his supporters in Paris on Wednesday. “He embodied something major, you have to hear it,” said Eric Ciotti on Tuesday. “Tomorrow, if I am elected, I would like Aurélien Pradié to have a major place with his friends in the team”.
The deputy for Lot did not give a voting instruction but several of his lieutenants – including the deputies Pierre-Henri Dumont and Raphaël Schellenberger – lined up behind Eric Ciotti. With 73% participation in the first round, one of the keys to the second will also be to mobilize the large quarter of abstainers, to restore momentum to a party that fell to 4.8% during the last presidential election.