In November 2016, François Fillon won with a crash the primary of the right and the center against Alain Juppé. Five years later, the former Prime Minister of Nicolas Sarkozy is back in court to be tried on appeal on Monday in the so-called “fictitious jobs” case. He had been sentenced, at first instance, to a five-year prison sentence, two of which was firm.
This new trial comes in the middle of the campaign for the primary internal to the Republicans. What remains of François Fillon and his program of “rupture” among the five candidates for the LR congress, who meet this Sunday evening for a new debate?
A 2017 campaign that left its mark
For a good part of LR executives, the name of François Fillon refers above all to the nightmare of the 2017 campaign, marred by business. “He is the gravedigger of the right,” summed up a parliamentarian during his first trial in February 2020. The Republicans quickly wished to turn the page on this historic elimination in the first round of the presidential election. First consequence: get rid of the open primary, which had exposed the enmities between the candidates to a large audience.
“Five years ago, everyone had a good fight, and the right was divided. François Fillon had gone to the presidential election with his primary school team, leaving everyone else on the platform. This is the big lesson that we do not want to reproduce. The candidate who will win the congress in December will this time unite, ”insists Sébastien Huyghe, deputy and president of the LR du Nord federation.
After a vote of the militants, the party therefore opted for an internal ballot, even inventing an anti-Fillon clause to be able to disconnect, if necessary, the future candidate nominated by the members. “Because our misfortune came from the fact that the primary was a success, with more than 4 million participants. François Fillon felt completely legitimate, despite the business that plagued him, and we were unable to change candidate, ”adds the deputy.
A “break” project claimed by some candidates
Basically, François Fillon had also marked the spirits by a program of “rupture” assumed. “The beginning of the collapse of Fillon, it is not justice, it is from January, on the civil servants and the health insurance”, squeaks a cador LR, while the candidate promised in particular a reduction of the coverage of Social Security and the elimination of 500,000 civil servant positions. The day after the defeat, the party had therefore amended this rigorous program for the legislative campaign, then posing more in the “social right” in recent years.
But during the first debate between the five candidates for the LR Congress, Eric Ciotti nonetheless claimed responsibility for François Fillon’s project, proposing a reduction in public spending of 100 billion euros, the return to the 39 paid hours 38 and the abolition of 250,000 civil servant posts. Without citing the candidate of 2017, Valérie Pécresse for her part defended “a project of frank rupture and of the assumed right”, evoking the need to make “difficult reforms” for public finances, with 45 billion euros in savings , and 15 billion in privatization receipts.
“The rupture of Fillon was the result of a reflection because the country was badly. There was a desire to debureaucratize, to be very precise in the proposals and their funding. I find the same intellectual rigor in Valérie Pécresse ”, assures the ex-fillonist Florence Portelli, today alongside the candidate from Ile-de-France.
Orphan Trocadero right?
“Fillon’s success was built on his radicalism on the decline in public spending and on immigration, which we find today among candidates, sometimes in a tactical manner. But also on the societal question, on his vision of the family, ”recalls a former advisor, now a supporter of Bruno Retailleau. The former candidate had seduced the most conservative Catholic right by proposing in particular a rewrite of the Taubira law on full adoption or the ban on medically assisted procreation (PMA) for single women and female couples.
On this ground, the candidates advance much more cautiously. Xavier Bertrand contented himself with defending “a moratorium on societal laws” for five years, while Valérie Pécresse put forward some ideas on family policy. “The conservative right is in fact an orphan because these social questions have been abandoned by LR. I am therefore not surprised to see some of the people who supported Fillon now go to Eric Zemmour ”, resumes the support of Retailleau. At the end of September, of the five candidates, only Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin were also present at the “conservatism day” organized by the Conservative Movement (ex-Sens commun, from the Manif pour tous). That day, it was Eric Zemmour who had created the event.