One thing was clear even before the election for the French Conservative presidency: whoever wins will have a lot to do. After five years of Macronism, Les Républicains (LR) are as good as dead. In the spring presidential election, their candidate Valérie Pécresse did not get five percent of the votes, a historically poor result. Now it should be directed by Éric Ciotti, who is considered a hardliner. On Sunday, 53.7 percent of party members elected him their new leader.
The deputy from Nice was already the favorite from the outset, having already received 42.7 percent of the votes in the first ballot last weekend. His opponent, Senator Bruno Retailleau, lost on Sunday in the runoff with 46.3 percent of the vote.
For the Republicans, the search for a new chairman was also the search for a new political course. The French conservatives have been losing importance for years. With Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, the once proud bourgeois party had two presidents in the Fifth Republic. The Republicans have now been in opposition for ten years, and the number of MPs in the National Assembly has continued to shrink, from 320 in 2007 to 62 today.
They are no longer the only ones wooing conservative voters
Things have gotten tight right of center in France. On the one hand, there is Macron and his government, who are wooing the conservative milieu with projects such as pension reform and stricter migration laws. On the other hand, there is Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National, who want to attract middle-class voters with their carefully cultivated strategy of de-demonization.
The Republicans have a difficult position in the current parliament: because Macron’s government is dependent on support without an absolute majority, they do have decision-making power. However, if they agree with the government majority, they increasingly make themselves an appendage with no profile of their own.
With Éric Ciotti, the Republicans have now opted for a move to the right, one could also say for a Rassemblement National light. Ciotti’s opponent, Bruno Retailleau, also followed a right-wing course in the election campaign, while the more moderate Aurélien Pradié was eliminated in the first ballot. Both Ciotti and Retailleau stated in advance that they did not want to enter into a coalition with Macron.
Éric Ciotti’s core issues are security and migration, he wants to make immigration to France more difficult and deportations easier. Ciotti wants to abolish family reunification and that only those born in France get French citizenship. In his election program for the party chairmanship, he warned against the “ideology of wokism” and its “Islamist tendencies”. The right magazine Values Current the politician said a year ago: “What distinguishes us from the Rassemblement National is our ability to govern.”
The new one isn’t without flaws either
Shortly before the election, Ciotti’s campaign suffered two setbacks. At the end of November, French media revealed that the financial prosecutor’s office had initiated proceedings against his ex-wife, including for embezzling public funds. Ciotti is said to have employed her for years in his deputy office in Parliament, in the town hall of Nice and in the department. Last week, the newspaper published Liberation an article that accused the party of nepotism in Ciotti’s Alpes-Maritimes department.
Now Éric Ciotti has won anyway – and the expectations of him are high. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron will no longer be able to stand in the upcoming presidential elections in 2027. Then it will be seen whether France still trusts the Republicans to have a president.
Ciotti finished second to Valérie Pécresse in last year’s Republican primary. However, he himself has already ruled out that he could compete again in 2027. Ciotti had previously announced that if elected, he would support former party leader Laurent Wauquiez as a presidential candidate. It is also considered tight right.