Five candidates clashed this Wednesday for the presidency of the LREM group in the Assembly.
At the end of the first round, the former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner came out on top ahead of Aurore Bergé.
The two will face off in a second round on Thursday morning.
The duel was expected: the former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, who came first in the first round on Wednesday, will face Aurore Bergé on Thursday for the presidency of the LREM deputies, according to the results communicated by the majority group.
Christophe Castaner won 36.06% of the vote, or 97 votes, while Aurore Bergé won 30.11% of the vote, or 81 votes.
They are ahead of the former Minister for the Ecological Transition François de Rugy (21.93%, 59 votes), the deputy for Hérault Coralie Dubost (9.67%, 26 votes) and the deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis Patrice Anato (2.23%, 6 votes).
This first round showed a participation rate of 98% among the deputies "walkers", that is to say 272 votes cast.
The second round is scheduled for Thursday morning from 8 a.m. to noon.
The name of the winner will be officially announced Thursday at midday while the deputies of the majority group will meet near Amiens on the occasion of their parliamentary days.
The five candidates debated with the deputies "marchers" Tuesday morning in the Assembly, by increasing the calls for the assembly and the remobilization.
A weakened LREM group
The winner of this election will take over from the deputy for Paris Gilles Le Gendre, who had been faced with a series of departures, in particular to two new parliamentary groups, Ecologie Démocratie Solidarité and Agir Ensemble.
The LREM group, weakened by these defections, recorded at the beginning of the week three new departures to the Modem allies. The future president will be the third since the start of the term in 2017, after Richard Ferrand and Gilles Le Gendre, who had announced his resignation in July.
In the same ballot, the "marchers" voted on the presidencies of the Assembly's committees for Sustainable Development and Social Affairs, after the departures of Barbara Pompili and Brigitte Bourguignon for the government.
Second rounds will have to decide between Fadila Khattabi and Charlotte Parmentier Lecocq for Social Affairs, Laurence Maillart-Méhaignerie and Jean-Charles Colas-Roy for Sustainable Development.