Can the president of Hauts-de-France, who has not been a member of LR since 2017, unify the right if the non-candidacy of François Baroin for the 2022 presidential election is confirmed?
This is what many tenors of his former political formation anticipate.
"The second Baroin says he is not going, elected officials will freak out and say: 'We support Bertrand'," anticipates a leader of the Republicans.
With a year and a half of the presidential election, the president of Hauts-de-France can he appear as a plan B for the right?
Despite his departure from LR in 2017, when Laurent Wauquiez took the head of the party, Xavier Bertrand seems well positioned.
Especially since nobody believes in the hypothesis of a candidacy of the president of the Association of mayors of France, François Baroin.
>> Xavier Bertrand will be the guest of the
Grand Rendez-vous
Europe 1 - CNews - Les Echos, Sunday morning from 10 a.m.
"We cannot afford to have two candidates"
In the ranks of the right, some are already beginning to greet the "gnaque" of Xavier Bertrand.
Rachida Dati presents him, for example, as "the one who is most hungry".
And for the boss of the group in the National Assembly, Damien Abad, it is certain: it will be necessary to reckon with the president of Hauts-de-France when appointing the candidate of the Republicans, even if he slammed the door party.
"Xavier Bertrand has shown his desire, his determination", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1. "In the tie-breaker system that we are going to organize, everyone has to be on the starting line, because that we cannot afford to have two candidacies, nor zero for that matter, we need one and only one. "
"Bertrand expresses himself a lot, but does not have good polls"
For his part, Xavier Bertrand methodically maintains his network of elected officials on the right, even if not all are excited about his candidacy.
"He's missing something," sneers a parliamentarian.
Another worries: "Bertrand speaks a lot, but does not have good polls".
>> Find Europe morning weekend in podcast and in replay here
In any case, at LR, there is no longer any ostracism towards him.
The proof: Christian Jacob will have lunch with him at the end of the month, officially to talk regional.
But the party boss admits: there may be other topics on the menu.
Even if the next elections will be crucial: Xavier Bertrand himself said that in the event of defeat in his stronghold, he would simply give up the presidential election.