How to campaign anyway? Dark suits and black ties, as for a funeral, the four “musketeers” of Valérie Pécresse, Eric Ciotti, Xavier Bertrand, Michel Barnier and Philippe Juvin, finally decided to counterattack, the day after Emmanuel’s declaration of candidacy Macron. Initially, the strategists of the Les Républicains (LR) party had decided to cancel the planned response – this press conference of the lieutenants and the deployment of “regional speakers” throughout the territory – in order to avoid bludgeoning the balance sheet of the outgoing, whereas this one must manage the war started by Russia against Ukraine. But that was tantamount to abdicating, to acknowledge that the campaign was over.
Mme Pécresse finally decided to send his supporters, as planned, to reply to Mr. Macron. In a small room in the Charters exhibition center, the candidate’s “uncle guns” therefore harshly attacked the five-year term, insisting on the need to preserve a democratic debate so that the presidential election is not “confiscated”. The first, Eric Ciotti, criticized the “insipid letter” sent by Mr. Macron, a “addition of clichés”, from “hollow sentences” and of « contradictions ». For the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, the Head of State would seek to “hiding his balance sheet” taking shelter from “cynical way” behind the crisis.
Same charge on the side of Xavier Bertrand, who denounced the worsening of « fractures » for five years, under the impetus of a president “disconnected”, while Michel Barnier murdered the diplomatic record of the outgoing Head of State (Mali, Australian submarine affair, Lebanon). “We are a country that thought we were prepared for everything, when we are not prepared for anything”, abounded Philippe Juvin, according to which the health crisis was badly managed by the power.
Wauquiez’s skid and back-pedalling
While they were leading the offensive, Valérie Pécresse took the opportunity to return to the field, criss-crossing – without journalists – the city center of Chartres, before unveiling proposals on decentralization, in front of several hundred local elected officials, gathered in darkness at lunchtime, under the arch of the exhibition center, where only the stage was lit.
The LR champion, who lands in “territorial candidate” against the verticality of a power « solitaire », offered a “freedom and trust pact” to local elected officials, as well as the possibility of adapting national regulations, which, according to her, enclose the life of communities, to local realities, via contracts with the prefects. One “right to differentiation” which it wishes to enshrine in the Constitution. She also called on elected officials to step up initiatives in the territories to provide the Ukrainian people “the help they need”.
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