Valérie Pécresse in Courbevoie, in September 2018. – Yann Bohac / SIPA
Favorite by the polls, the ex-LR president of Ile-de-France, Valérie Pécresse, formalized her candidacy for the regional elections, this Wednesday, before a presidential election of 2022 for which the right is still seeking its candidate.
“I am a candidate for a second term at the head of the Ile-de-France region”, said Valérie Pécresse to Parisian, by outlining the main lines of its program.
End of career in case of defeat
She thus wishes, according to the daily, “an RER bicycle, renovated high schools, aid for the purchase of an electric vehicle” and “a maximum price blocked at 4 euros to travel anywhere in the region by public transport” . “We are going to create a regional mutual,” also assures Valérie Pécresse, with the aim of obtaining, for retirees, students, self-employed workers and job seekers, “rates which may be 20 to 30% cheaper for all. Ile-de-France residents who have mutual funds ”.
This candidacy is not a surprise for the president of the Free movement !, who had delighted the region to the Socialists in 2015: on April 12 already, she affirmed how “this meeting of the regional” with its citizens was “very important” for her. She then increased the pressure, assuring that a defeat “would mark the end of (her) political career” – just as the president (ex-LR) of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand had promised before her.
The right-wing candidate for 2022?
Valérie Pécresse is indeed one of those who could represent the right in 2022, like Xavier Bertrand (already declared) or Laurent Wauquiez, LR president of the Rhône-Alpes region. For that, it would have to impose itself in its political family, already by keeping its region, then by taking off in the polls, where Xavier Bertrand keeps for the moment a margin in advance.
According to a recent Ipsos survey on regional in Ile-de-France, Valérie Pécresse is credited with 34% of the votes in the first round, against 17% to Jordan Bardella (RN) and 12% to Audrey Pulvar (PS). It would also win in the second round, but with a smaller margin in the event of a quadrangular with LREM, the united left and the RN.