Paris (AFP)

Rachida Dati was designated Wednesday Republican candidate for the municipal elections of March 2020 in Paris, a battle she plans to place under the banner of "renewal".

The national commission of investiture (CNI) has as expected dubbed the former guard of the Seals of Nicolas Sarkozy who faced as the only rival Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée, counselor LR of the XIVth arrondissement and president of the group LRI (The Republicans and independents) .

Rachida Dati was immediately delighted with this nomination, assuring in a statement sent to AFP that his campaign, under the slogan "Engaged to change Paris", would have as priorities "safety, cleanliness", "families" and "ecology, health".

It is about "reconciling Parisians with Paris, after 12 years of socialist mandate," says the candidate LR, whose political advisor will be the deputy and former mayor of the sixteenth arrondissement Claude Goasguen - which seals the reconciliation after relations sometimes tense.

In her program, Mrs. Dati proposes including the establishment of "a municipal police force assigned priority to the fight against the delinquency of the daily" and a reduction of the tariff of the canteens with "a maximum price paid for a meal of 3.50 euros from the return to 2020 against 7 euros today ".

Promising to focus her ecological project "around the health and well-being", the candidate LR undertakes to launch a plan "healthy air for our children" (sensors of measurement of the quality of the air, purifiers filtering the particles...)

The candidate, who will gather its activists Thursday evening in a coffee shop of the twentieth, entrusted the direction of its campaign to the communicant Nelly Garnier, and the function of spokesman Gilles Mentre, former deputy director of cabinet of François Baroin.

- "Sword of Damocles" -

The investiture by LR puts an end to a suspense that was thin: Mrs. Dati, 53 years, assured in July that she would come and "we have no other candidate," confided before the election an official LR. But the battle promises to be bitter.

First because the Republican champion, a popular figure and pugnacious, is also a strong personality that is not unanimous, especially since some dread judicial troubles bringing bad memories of the case Fillon.

Rachida Dati is indeed under investigation for "abuse of corporate property" and "corruption" of the National Financial Procuratorate, and searches were conducted in his office and at his home. Even if the mayor of the 7th arrondissement denies any irregularity, this case weighs "like a sword of Damocles", sighs an elected.

Then because The Republicans, losing momentum, face in Paris the double competition of an outgoing mayor, Anne Hidalgo (PS), well established and a party En Marche! which aims to swallow the traditional electorate of the right.

In the European elections of May 26, LR won only 10.2% of the vote in the capital against 32.9% in the Renaissance list supported by LREM.

In a poll published in mid-September, Rachida Dati came in only fourth place with 14%, behind a list of the municipal majority led by Anne Hidalgo (24%), whose candidacy is no doubt, Benjamin Griveaux ( 17%, LREM) and Cédric Villani (15%, dissenting).

Several mayors elected under the label LR have also distanced themselves since the last municipal (Delphine Bürlki in the ninth, Florence Berthout in the Ve ...).

In Paris, the candidate has already warned that she intends to present candidates stamped LR in all boroughs - a way to put on the wall mayors LR also tried to maintain the vagueness on their membership.

The strategy is disputed: "Rachida Dati demands an absolute commitment, but it must leave a little flexibility in the constitution of lists, which are not necessarily 100% LR," says a party executive.

© 2019 AFP