Christian Jacob’s successor is called Eric Ciotti. The members of the Republicans elected him on Sunday, December 11 as the new president of the party, with 53.7% of the vote, after a second internal round which opposed him to Bruno Retailleau. Turnout reached 69.70% in the second round against 72.67% in the first, said Annie Genevard during a press briefing at party headquarters.
The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti, very firm on the regalian, came first in the first round on December 4 with 42.73% of the vote, against 34.45% for the boss of the senators Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau, holding a conservative and liberal line, and 22.29% for Aurélien Pradié, eliminated.
It was, for the 91,110 members, to choose the successor of Christian Jacob who resigned in June, after elections which recorded the weakening of the right-wing party, which fell to 4.8% in the presidential election.
In the home stretch, the candidates multiplied trips and interviews to try to win a much tighter election than the previous ones, which had only been played in one round. Even if the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes left with a head start, he did not want to relive the scenario of 2021 when, coming first in the first round of the primary, he had to bow in the second against Valérie Pécresse, paying an “everything but Ciotti” among voters worried about his right-wing line.
“Without excess”
Eric Ciotti, who boasts of his loyalty to the RPR and then to the LR, defends a course “assumed right”, “refusing political correctness”, with a very firm tone on security and immigration. Bruno Retailleau, highly critical of Nicolas Sarkozy, campaigned on the theme of “Give the party back to the members” consulted by referendum, with a line “clearly right-wing” though “without excess”.
The Ciotti-Retailleau duel is “the choice between a conservative right and a conservative right”estimated Sunday on RTL-Le Figaro-LCI the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, who called Les Républicains “to find an ideological compass because we need to work with the Republican right”.
With 73% participation in the first round, one of the keys to the second was to mobilize the large quarter of abstainers. Above all, it was necessary for the candidates to succeed in capturing the 22% of votes gathered by Aurélien Pradié, who had not given a voting instruction. Several of his lieutenants, including MPs Pierre-Henri Dumont and Raphaël Schellenberger, lined up behind Eric Ciotti. Friday, Christian Jacob and the boss of the LR deputies, Olivier Marleix, gave their support to the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, who also avails himself of that of the mayor of Troyes, François Baroin.
Party in campaign as the candidate of the elected officials, Bruno Retailleau could for his part take advantage of the support of the president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, of the MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, of François Fillon, but also of the president of the Hauts region. -de-France, Xavier Bertrand. In grandstand at Figaro published Monday, December 5, some one hundred and twenty parliamentarians had posted their choice in favor of Bruno Retailleau, “candidate of rupture, renewal and unification”.
Wauquiez in ambush
The senator also contacted the party on Thursday evening to ask it to study measures aimed at “reinforcing security and therefore legitimacy” of the second round, after the publication of a in order to Release on “powerful patronage systems” when joining in the Alpes-Maritimes.
On Wednesday, one hundred and forty elected officials had explained in a forum that they would vote for the one who « fera[it] win the right ». At the forefront of the signatories, Laurent Wauquiez, present Thursday evening at a public meeting in Paris. Eric Ciotti had promised before his election to quickly designate the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region as a presidential candidate. A calendar that his opponent disputes: “This presidential obsession will kill us”repeats Bruno Retailleau.