When the compass needle trembles – politics

Valérie Pécresse looked disturbed as she said a few words in the entrance of the party building on Paris’ Rue de Vaugirard. The night before she had achieved by far the worst result for the right-wing party in the first round of a French presidential election. “Debacle”, “monumental crash”, “colossal failure” – such words had been rained down on them from the media. And because the 4.8 percent of the votes she got are just not enough to get a large part of the campaign costs back from the state, she now had to ask for donations. The financial situation is critical, she said with a gloomy look, she herself had invested five million euros and she needed the money by mid-May.

Things are not looking good at all for Les Républicains (LR), the party that succeeded the founder of the state, Charles de Gaulle, which was called the UMP until 2015 and brings together all sorts of right-of-centre currents: the Gaullists themselves, Christian Democrats, conservatives, right-wing liberals. She provided half of all presidents of the Fifth Republic. It is still strong in many regions and cities, but its national decline has been apparent for some time.

The candidate seemed wooden and unlocked, like a bad actress

The new low has a lot to do with the candidate and an election campaign that was widely described as a failure. The former minister and current president of the capital region Île-de-France prevailed against four men in an internal party primary in autumn, including the EU’s ex-Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. She promised to “repair” France and put an end to Emmanuel Macron’s “irresponsible debt policy”. In fact, early polls put her almost level with the incumbent.

But she failed at her first major event in Paris, seemed wooden and looser, like a bad actress. The media response was devastating. Pécresse was also puzzling in terms of content. She couldn’t think of a clearly recognizable hot topic, her political compass seemed to be wobbling. In 2019 she resigned from the party in protest at the legal course of the populist then-chairman Laurent Wauquiez. During the election campaign, however, she felt she had to fish on the far right herself and did not shy away from repeatedly using the phrase “grand replacement,” an identitarian battlefield term that alludes to a population exchange with Arab immigrants allegedly planned by Western elites . She will support those European states that “pull up walls,” she said, demanding full assimilation from immigrants. She wants “French people of the heart, not just on paper” – also a concept of the extreme right.

Even the party itself no longer seems to know where it wants to go. On the day after the election, the presidency declared that the runner-up in the first round, Marine Le Pen, must be stopped, but, unlike Pécresse on election night, did not recommend Macron for election. Nicolas Sarkozy, the last right-wing president from 2007 to 2012, made up for this all the more urgently the next morning. Despite his troubles with the judiciary, his words still carry remarkable weight in the country. “We should only be guided by the interests of France,” he said, unequivocally punching the party leadership in the ribs: “You can never go wrong if you opt for clarity and consistency.”

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Some of the problems of the bourgeoisie can be seen in Sarkozy as a person. The 67-year-old was her last leading figure, who, in addition to bling-bling, also brought some charisma. Since then, the party has been looking in vain for a replacement, getting tangled up in internal power struggles and arguments about direction. Sarkozy has long distanced himself from the Républicains and moved closer to Macron, the man who sees himself as “neither right nor left” and has repeatedly brought right-wing politicians such as ex-Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin into his cabinet. The President and his predecessor value each other. Sarkozy recommended that he make Christine Lagarde President of the European National Bank and, allegedly, his future Prime Minister as well. A good three weeks ago, Sarkozy, who had refused to support Pécresse to the end, and Macron met for breakfast; supposedly they discussed the main lines of a future cooperation.

Macron reached out to the middle class on election night when he called for the creation of a “great political movement of unity and action.” For Sarkozy it is clear that the Républicains can only survive the parliamentary elections in June if they give up the strict opposition and at least partially join Macron’s “presidential majority”. He is already imitating Macron’s style: A “new era” is imminent, he explained, and one has to leave “the partisan reflexes” behind. Many veteran Républicains consider this to be the wrong approach. “We will not rebuild the right,” criticized Senator Bruno Retailleau, “by dissolving into Macronism.”

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