Paris (AFP)
Valérie Pécresse, president (Libres !, ex-LR) of the Ile-de-France region, pleaded Thursday for the right and the center to organize "a primary open to all French" in order to choose a common candidate for the presidential election from 2022.
While the president of LR Christian Jacob said Wednesday that a primary within the party would be organized only if no natural candidate manages to emerge, Ms. Pécresse pleaded on LCI for "a candidate of the right and of the single center" , considering that for that "it will take a primary, a tiebreaker, but an open primary, that all the French have to decide".
"This selection cannot be the property of a party," added Ms. Pécresse, who has just garnered the support of ten center-right elected officials at the Ile-de-France regional council for the 2021 regional elections.
She considered that having this "single candidate against Emmanuel Macron" is "a national necessity, because the President of the Republic borrows the speech of the right but does not lead a policy of the right".
Asked if she would run for such a primary, while her name is regularly cited as a possible right-wing candidate in 2022, she felt that "today the time for campaigns has not come, nor for regional campaigns or that of national campaigns, because today, it is the crisis and that until February March, the French and the Ile-de-France ask me first to do what I was elected for ”.
"At this stage, for the moment, I am not considering anything, I am at my task," she added.
Asked what differentiates her from Emmanuel Macron, she mentioned the "ditch on the regal", the fact that she "has been warning for years about the rise of Islamism, of communitarianism", and her desire to " to act "for" a large suburban plan, to break the urban ghettos, a very great firmness on the regalien, to stop the undergone immigration ".
"On all these subjects we cannot be in the middle of the ford".
As for the referendum on the climate desired by the Head of State, she considered that "making referendums on which everyone will agree is good", but that "acting is better" .
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