Paris (AFP)
"Why not?", Launched on Wednesday the leader of senators LR Bruno Retailleau face the possibility of running for president in 2022, after the president of the region of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand confided that he "thought" as well.
The senator of Vendée mentioned on BFMTV and RMC two possibilities for the presidential election: the rallying to a candidate - "if I note" that one of them carries "my convictions", "I will help it" - and, failing that, "if I find that none of the candidates who could come from the right and who could come forward bear these conditions, then I will have to ask myself this question," he continued.
"Of course I will ask," added the former coordinator of the presidential campaign of François Fillon, two years after the nonqualification of the candidate of the right and center for the second round and a few months after the debacle of the European (8.48%).
The president of the region of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand said last week that he would be a candidate for his succession to the regional elections of 2021 and that he "thought" also in the presidential election of 2022, but that he would stop politics if he failed in his area.
Mr. Retailleau has renounced to be a candidate for the presidency LR to "avoid a war of the chiefs", like that which had opposed Jean-François Cope and François Fillon in 2012.
The party, currently led by interim President Jean Leonetti, decided this time to "dissociate" the internal election of the next presidential election. For the sake of "appeasement", the party leadership agreed in June that the candidates had to take "the moral pledge" not to run in 2022.
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