The resignation of Laurent Wauquiez, Sunday night, plunged the Republicans in the throes of introspection and Jean Leonetti on the front of the stage. The mayor of Antibes, hitherto vice-president of the party, has become, through the statutes, the acting president. Devoted and discreet, the former deputy of Alpes-Maritimes ticks many boxes to be the man of the situation until the election of a successor in due form, scheduled for the fall.
A rally of the first hour
Jean Leonetti was initially a member of the Radical Party, which joined the right to compose the UMP in 2002. Long vice president of this party, he gave up responsibilities in 2012, when he claimed autonomy from the UMP. A decision among others that illustrates the desire to meet the mayor of Antibes since 1995. "I lived a period in which there was Charles Pasqua and Simone Veil in the same government," he said. he called back on France 2 on Tuesday morning. "In which personalities like Jean-Louis Borloo and Nicolas Sarkozy worked together."
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Assuring today the interim of LR after a Laurent Wauquiez who has not, according to his critics, not able to coexist all the trends of the right within a family, Jean Leonetti is therefore at heart to reconnect with a clear goal: "to gather without denying oneself." He will be able to build on the experience gained in the 2005 vote on the end-of-life law that bears his name. At the time, he who was the drafter of the text establishing the notions of "unreasonable obstinacy" and "artificial extension of life" had managed to get a consensus around.
A moderate after Wauquiez
Compared to Laurent Wauquiez, cut off from a part of LR by his ideas and his hard right words, Jean Leonetti has always embodied a more moderate line. "We do not have to love everyone, but what is important is that the social and humanist current has its place" in the UMP, he said in 2011 to Liberation . On several issues, the Mayor of Antibes has already assumed his difference. In the summer of 2016, he was one of the few right wing of the Côte d'Azur not to publish a ban on burkini in his commune.
The same year, Jean Leonetti had supported Alain Juppé in primary school. There too, an exception among the right-wing elected officials of the coast. In June 2018, the one who was to be officially inducted number 2 of LR always held the same speech in the columns of the World . "Laurent [Wauquiez] embodies a line of authority on sovereign issues, I embody a humanist and pro-European line."
A discreet appreciated
If he arrives at the front of the stage by the yardstick of a resignation, Jean Leonetti is not a great accustomed to the spotlight. The man has cultivated a discretion that plays a lot in his popularity among Republicans. Showing no personal ambition, he is one of those who are not dangerous enough to attract enemies. "I am certainly brilliant and young at heart, but I am 70 years old," he said humorously last December, when he was declining the list of LR in Europe.
Today, the acting president is not in the starting blocks for 2022. Yet another advantage over Laurent Wauquiez, while many voices in-house called for an entire party head focused on his task rather than the presidential deadline. "I do not intend to make an interim ten years," warned Jean Leonetti Tuesday on France 2. "I intend to bring out a rally on ideas and an election that brings a new president . "
This election should be held "at the beginning, in the month of September-October". In the meantime, the mayor of Antibes must watch over a party that "may die", according to his own words. To those who willingly laugh at seeing this role come to an end-of-life specialist, Jean Leonetti recalled his profession: "I am also a resuscitator cardiologist, I have probably saved more lives than accompanied lives to death. . "