Paris (AFP)
Aurélien Pradié, the secretary general of the Republicans, denounced Tuesday the "miserable" call of the LR mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi to reach an agreement with Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election of 2022, accusing him of "selling himself at most offering ".
"In order not to spoil all the talents of the right, let's make an agreement with Emmanuel Macron so that he is our common presidential candidate and that they can participate in the recovery of our country," proposed Mr. Estrosi Monday in Le Figaro.
"My ethical duty, my duty of political value, is to oppose a man (Emmanuel Macron) whose political project is not mine, not to submit with a cowardice, an opportunism that I find enough miserable ", thundered number three of LR on Franceinfo, for whom" all this is doing terrible harm to our democracy ".
"Christian Estrosi's position makes me despair of this political era, he added. A few decades ago, the honor of politics was to defend one's convictions, it was to be faithful to values which we believed, today the honor of politics, it would be to sell to the highest bidder, I find that totally miserable ".
According to him, "there are real deep differences" between the President of the Republic and LR.
"Emmanuel Macron is totally subject to the effect of globalization, the Republican right has always wanted to ensure that national sovereignty is stronger than anything else", he underlines in particular.
Christian Estrosi's position comes at a time when several Republican executives are making their mark for 2022: Bruno Retailleau, Xavier Bertrand, Valérie Pécresse or even François Baroin, who must clarify his intentions in the fall.
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