At the Auvergne Embassy, in Paris,
It’s the story of a hunter, a rugby player and a three-star chef… The beginnings of the “Rural Alliance” list for the next European elections had all the makings of a good story. Willy Schraen, the influential president of the National Hunters’ Federation, invited the press this Tuesday morning to the Ambassade d’Auvergne, a chic restaurant in the center of Paris, to tell us more over an aligot. As soon as we arrive in the press room, improvised upstairs, we realize that the unusual team promised arouses curiosity. A good fifty journalists cram as best they can into a small room that can hold half of them.
“There are many of you and the place is small. Evil tongues may say that it looks like a third-half locker room, a fishing lodge or a hunting lodge. In short, places where there is conviviality and proximity, which we obviously defend,” laughs Willy Schraen. Very comfortable, the media regular says he is “happy” to have around ten personalities at his side, presented as “different facets of this rurality” and “apolitical”.
Gagnaire and Hinault withdrew
There is Véronique Langlais, president of the Paris Butchers’ Union, the dog breeder Jérémy Grandière, president of the departmental federation of fishermen of Ile-et-Villaine, the “Queen of Arles” Camille Hoteman, the farmer Agathe Raimbert. We also distinguish the colossus Louis Picamoles, the ex-rugby player with 82 caps with the XV of France. “Our fight is not that of irreducible Gauls resistant to change,” says Willy Schraen. It consists of preserving lifestyles based on surprisingly modern values. »
However, a distinguished guest is missing: the legendary Pierre Gagnaire. Announced on the list, the three-Michelin-starred chef finally stood up to his hunter friend. “Pierre has always been a supporter of the rural cause, there is no problem with that,” says the future head of the list. “There will be a lot of supporters, but these people in real life have a job, they don’t necessarily have time to devote to an election.” The five-time winner of the Tour de France, Bernard Hinault, also gave up, for fear of causing a storm on social networks.
“No link with Macron”
It remains to be seen the motivations of this small troop on their way to the European Parliament. In his speech, Willy Schraen criticizes the “suffocating norms”, the “technocrats who theorize models of society where soon it will no longer be possible to freely choose even one’s wallpaper”, the “above ground” policies and the “ elites disconnected from real life, under the influence of political ecology.” He draws in broad strokes his “France of the forgotten”, a caricatured and fantasized France, his detractors will say.
We are not bastards because we love agriculture and livestock, hunting and fishing, animals and the bullfighting world, wine and meat, rugby and football, pétanque and barbecue, “aperitif and pork,” says Willy Schraen.
But this list raises questions because Willy Schraen is rather close to Emmanuel Macron and supported him from the first round of the last presidential election. At the origin of this initiative we also find the lobbyist Thierry Coste, advisor to the Head of State, the man who would have led to the departure of Nicolas Hulot from the government in 2018. Enough to make the National Rally say that the Elysée worked “underhand” with the aim of weakening the big favorite next June. “There is no link with Emmanuel Macron,” sweeps Thierry Coste in a corridor of the restaurant. “I advised him in a friendly and personal way on rurality and hunting, as I did with Hollande, Sarkozy and Chirac. I chat with everyone, I even had a very good dinner with Jordan Bardella in June,” he adds mischievously.
When the waiters bring the steaming aligot into the room, the running mates are still responding to the numerous journalists present. If the “anti-elite” discourse is sometimes also a little heated, Willy Schraen and Thierry Coste have succeeded in their first bet: turning the cameras on an unusual list, credited with less than 1% of voting intentions in a recent survey.