For Les Républicains (LR), the official return to school is scheduled for next weekend in the Yvelines. But the Vendée senator Bruno Retailleau brings together the LR activists from the West in La Baule this Saturday. For her part, the president of the Île-de-France region Valérie Pécresse, who has however left LR, is gathering her troops in Essonne. And on Sunday, it will be the turn of Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, to climb Mont Mézenc with activists, while the deputy vice-president of the party, Guillaume Peltier, brings together his mid -September in Sologne. For many, this scattered back to school illustrates a right in lack of a natural leader for 2022.
"Macron must be laughing ..."
However, Christian Jacob, the boss of LR, had set a rule: that of a big comeback, all together. But the goal of putting an end to re-entries by chapel, a habit well established on the right since the defeat of 2012, is already a failure. "Macron must be laughing ... The party of order is not able to bring it home!" plague a leader in Europe 1.
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Friday, Christian Jacob therefore had to set another rule for his troops: not to pollute the fall with the question of the nomination of the candidate for 2022. But this command also risks being transgressed. Bruno Retailleau already says he wants to be a candidate for a right-wing primary, while most LR tenors dream of removing the primary from the party statutes before Christmas to forget the debacle of 2017.
A party suspended from the decision of François Baroin
Christian Jacob seeks for his part to delay, hoping that a candidate is needed naturally before the summer.
In the meantime, the question of "who to represent LR" is on everyone's mind. The party is suspended on the decision of the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy François Baroin. One member sums up the issue as follows: "2022 is Armageddon." The election of the last chance for LR.