Villeneuve-Loubet (France) (AFP)

The deputy Christian Jacob, favorite candidate for the presidency of the party in crisis The Republicans, called Tuesday night activists to release "small chapels" to build a "cathedral" of "alternation after macronism".

"This is the challenge that we have to bring before the next presidential: to prepare this gathering, this union, and out of these small chapels," said the elected representative of Seine-et-Marne in front of a few hundred activists gathered in Villeneuve-Loubet, in the Alpes-Maritimes, department which shelters the biggest federation of the party.

LR has been going through a deep crisis since its debacle in the European elections (8.48% of the votes), which caused the resignation of its president Laurent Wauquiez as well as several departures, among which that of the president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse.

"What is the interest of creating ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty chapels if our ambition is to build a large cathedral that is the real alternating force after macronism?", Asked the leader of the deputies LR .

Two enemy brothers of the department came to support him without avoiding: the deputy and president of the LR federation Eric Ciotti, and the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi. The acting president of LR and mayor of the nearby town of Antibes, Jean Leonetti, had also made the trip.

Messrs. Ciotti and Estrosi, who run for the city of Nice, were present at the beginning of the meeting, where only Eric Ciotti spoke, calling for a "collective recovery" of the party and a line "clear, uncompromising". The more moderate M. Estrosi, who presides over the movement of bold France, has eclipsed before the end of Mr. Jacob's speech.

"We can understand the interest of these micro-parties or these clubs if we do not want or if we can not work together, but if we really want to work together, it's in the family, in the big house we have to do it, "said Jacob.

Two other deputies head for LR: the Vaucluse deputy Julien Aubert, who criticizes the "lack of clarity" of Christian Jacob and defends a sovereignist line, and the deputy Yonne Guillaume Larrivé, holding a more liberal line , who wished Tuesday to finish with the right of the soil on the immigration.

© 2019 AFP