Paris (AFP)
Christian Jacob was elected president of the Republicans Sunday with 62.58% of the vote, said the High Authority of LR, becoming a municipal leader in five months in deep crisis after two years of disintegration.
The leader of deputies LR, who was the favorite, won in the first round against the Vaucluse sovereignty MP Julien Aubert (21.28% of votes) and the most liberal Guillaume Larrivé, MP for Yonne ( 16.14%).
The participation was stronger than expected since 62,401 members of their contribution day voted, or 47% of participation, said Henri de Beauregard said, the president of the high authority of the party.
For comparison, in 2017 the participation had reached 42.46% and Laurent Wauquiez was elected with nearly 75% of the vote. LR had 235,000 members, 100,000 more than today.
"I know that his mission will not be easy, but I urge everyone to make it easier for him," said Jean Leonetti, who had been interim president since the departure of Laurent Wauquiez. in June after the crash to the Europeans. "Thanks to the activists, we must not disappoint them," he added.
This mobilization should establish the legitimacy of Mr. Jacob in his work of "gathering", even if it is already established that he will not run for president in 2022.
"The time is not for the presidential man", hammered during his fifty campaign meetings Mr. Jacob, 59, three times minister, and who claims from his past as a farmer a "common sense peasant ".
The new president of LR, with his knowledge of the LR machine and his reassuring image of historical Chirac, wants above all to "gather, reconcile and rebuild" a "great right-wing party, open, popular and proud of its values, as he explains it in his profession of faith.
© 2019 AFP