The LR president of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Renaud Muselier. – Alain ROBERT / SIPA
President LR of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Renaud Muselier, on Tuesday formalized his candidacy for the next regional elections, polls placing him in a favorable position to win a second term.
Renaud Muselier had never hidden his intention to appear, but he said he did not want to rush so as not to interfere with his action in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic in a region of more than five million inhabitants.
“A solid balance sheet”
“On June 20 and 27, I will be a candidate in the regional elections,” Renaud Muselier announced in a press release, highlighting his “solid record”. “This assessment is recognized to us by major players in culture that we have never abandoned, in the economic world that we have always supported (…) and by more than a thousand local elected officials who have joined my support committee “, he added.
This candidacy is the third to be formalized in this region after those of the Secretary of State for the Disabled Sophie Cluzel for the Republic in March (LREM), February 18, and Thierry Mariani for the National Gathering (RN) Thursday. The left, officially united, is negotiating for its part with environmentalists who do not rule out leaving alone in the first round.
Favorite polls
According to several polls, Thierry Mariani, former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy now supported by the head of the RN Marine Le Pen, would come first in the first round but would be preceded in the second by Renaud Muselier. However, an Ifop study in mid-April for La Tribune and Europe 1 showed that an LR-LREM alliance from the first round would allow the duo to get ahead of the RN and win in the second, in the hypothesis of a triangular with a union of the left and environmentalists.
But for political scientist Frédéric Dabi (Ifop), a first-round LR-LREM alliance could also push some disgruntled right-wing voters towards the RN. The hypothesis of a joint LR-LREM list in the Paca region is debated while at the national level LR is opposed to the presidential party.
Towards a second term
Renaud Muselier, former Secretary of State to Jacques Chirac, who claims freedom and autonomy, ruled out any device agreement before the second round with LREM but specifying that these “barrier gestures” would not hold up to the second between Republicans in the face of the RN. “Simplistic slogans or the stepping stone for Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign will not take the fate of five million inhabitants hostage,” he said on Tuesday.
Renaud Muselier took the reins of the region in May 2017, succeeding Christian Estrosi who won the 2015 election against frontist Marion Maréchal Le Pen, then resigned to become mayor of Nice again. “I gave this hemicycle a strength that it had never had,” recently boasted Renaud Muselier, who prides himself on having attracted 4.6 billion euros in European funding.
In a tweet on Tuesday evening, the president of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and the Aix-Marseille metropolis, Martine Vassal, welcomed this candidacy: “We have been able to reunite our political family and we have the same desire to enhance our territory ”.