Paris (AFP)

Security, food, purchasing power ... The Republicans unveiled an impressive catalog of lines of thought on Thursday, the first step towards developing a program for the presidential election in 2022.

"It is the first basis for the reconquest, and a way of responding very clearly to those who wonder what it is to be on the right," said number 2 at a press conference. left Guillaume Peltier, underlining the "immense substantive work carried out".

The document, a 187-page "progress report", compiles the work carried out since February through 12 thematic forums to "stick as closely as possible to the daily lives of the French" and "respond to the major challenges of our century".

The report does not constitute "strung proposals" but "observations, analyzes and axes of proposals" which will be submitted to the field (activists but also professionals, associations ...) in the fall, before a planned "congress of ideas" in November, explained the president of the party Christian Jacob, himself initiator of this fundamental work which aims to revive a party in crisis after several electoral defeats.

It will then be a question of building a program "by the summer of 2021" for the party, which will also have to decide on its candidate. But "first the ideas", affirmed Mr. Jacob, for whom "of course the time of the incarnation will come" but "first let us agree to work on the substance".

"Valuing the role of seniors", "supporting businesses", "restoring security" ... on many subjects, this "book of the silent majority", in the words of Mr. Peltier, is advancing in marked ground.

The report thus takes up the idea of ​​lowering the costs of companies, and "allowing, through negotiation at the level of the company, to increase working time" and therefore wages.

On purchasing power, he also wants to "relaunch the social elevator" notably through participation in companies.

On security, LR refers to "a sovereign rearmament plan of 25 billion euros over five years", for an "ambitious" modernization of the police, the gendarmerie, and the justice system.

"The priority is to give the police the means to fulfill their mission, not to further increase the workforce without equipping them," said the report, which also mentions "a massive plan to build prison places".

For seniors, LR proposes to make Alzheimer a national "great cause" and to launch a reform of the management of addiction.

In terms of youth and education, several ideas have been put forward: integrating internships in companies in high school, increasing French and math hours in elementary school, ending single college and "allowing learning from 14 years ".

And to "revive activity in rural areas" the idea of ​​a "rural shield" is advanced with "zero closure of school class, post office, small railway line".

But the party is also thinking outside the box to talk about the environment and food, its gateway to ecology which has played an important role in the big cities at the municipal level.

"We must not speak of ecology but of sustainable development", specifies the document, which bets on the circular economy, the green taxation allocated to the ecological transition, and a reduction in the VAT on local products.

© 2020 AFP