Paris (AFP)

The right will have to find another champion than François Baroin, who has quietly renounced the presidential election, at the risk of prematurely whetting appetites 20 months before the election.

"He made it clear that under current conditions he was not engaging in the presidential election," Republican President Christian Jacob told AFP, while L'Opinion assures Wednesday that the mayor of Troyes is touring the great right-wing elected officials to explain to them the reasons for his renunciation.

"I understood, he has practically announced it elsewhere, that he would not be a candidate," for his part said on France Inter the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau.

The hypothesis of a candidacy, weakened in recent months, had seriously taken the lead in the wing in August after an article in Figaro.

"It's not a scoop, the press, everyone knows it", underlined Mr. Jacob.

But according to the Opinion, François Baroin who had promised to clarify "in the fall" his intentions, will not speak in public on the subject, reserving his explanations to the elected officials he meets.

Several of his recent interlocutors ensure that the mayor of Troyes notably explained his renunciation for personal reasons.

"He told us, I have a wife, a job, I know what that will represent, I am not ready to make this sacrifice", according to an elected official.

"It's not his fight," summed up another official.

According to two of his interlocutors, François Baroin would also have expressed some doubts about the support of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy.

"It is a complex, multifactorial decision, there are also political reasons for the state of the country, the health crisis ..." said an LR executive after meeting him.

- "Gathering" -

Although anticipated, this withdrawal of the favorite candidate in the leadership of LR left more than one melancholy, as the right seeks to turn the page of the defeats of 2012 and 2017 in the presidential election.

"He had a very strong capacity for bringing people together", regretted the vice-president of the National Assembly Annie Genevard who considers it important to "look to the future".

"It's a disappointment," said Centrists boss Hervé Morin, hailing a "respectable and courageous" approach.

"Its role will in any case be capital in the reconstruction of the right," said LR number 3, Aurélien Pradié, on FranceInfo.

In the absence of a natural candidate, it will be necessary to agree on another name, and for that to decide on the mode of designation.

The primary is viewed with suspicion by the direction of LR, which promises a "tie-breaker" yet to be defined by April.

Without waiting, the ex-LR president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand laid the groundwork, increasing the number of interviews this summer, and having lunch (for the first time since his departure in 2017) with Christian Jacob.

Xavier Bertrand "clearly appears to be the only right-wing candidate capable of shaking up the Macron / Le Pen match", tweeted this weekend the boss of LR deputies Damien Abad.

For him as for Valérie Pécresse, another ex-LR who runs Ile-de-France, the future is however conditioned on a victory in the regional.

Another potential candidate, Bruno Retailleau is also pushing his pawns: "if you have to be a candidate, I will be," he said on Wednesday.

Presenting himself as "the megaphone of the right from below", he in the process scratched the party which "does everything to kill the primary" and wants "to do without the militants".

An exit sharply criticized by Christian Jacob, for whom "when we speak of the French from below, it is that we look at them from above".

"A little humility, modesty never hurt in politics," he added.

"The period is not for individual ambitions", added Aurélien Pradié.

But 20 months before the presidential election, the vacuum left by François Baroin risks waking up the often fatal ego competitions on the right.

© 2020 AFP