Paris (AFP)

The boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau, potential right-wing candidate for 2022, has laid new ground for the presidential election in a letter to his supporters where he promises to "put France back in order".

"I have never confused my personal desires with the collective destiny. I have never dreamed of myself as President of the Republic. This is my strength," said Mr. Retailleau in this letter published Friday on the site of his movement Force Républicaine.

"If I want to defend my ideas at a time when France is hit by multiple crises, it is neither to deplore nor to testify," he adds.

Mr. Retailleau, who cherishes the idea of ​​a candidacy even if he has not yet clearly declared himself, harshly attacks the Head of State by worrying about "dangerous awakenings to which we have been condemned by the Jupiterian reveries "and" this uninterrupted parade of French anger since the election of Emmanuel Macron ".

"Disorder is everywhere", be it "in our wild streets, our Islamized neighborhoods" or "in the State", he adds.

But this close friend of François Fillon also criticizes the right, which "has not always been up to it" and "has too often despaired the voters".

"I have seen my political family give up, as I sometimes see them hesitating to accept their convictions, at the risk of throwing a disillusioned electorate into the arms of demagogues," he says.

"If, for my part, I have never left my party, I also know its limits as I suffer today its weaknesses", underlines Mr. Retailleau, while are also mentioned to represent the right in 2022 the ex-LR Valérie Pécresse and Xavier Bertrand, in whom many at LR place their hopes since the retirement of François Baroin.

Mr. Retailleau was deeply annoyed internally when he criticized in October the "right from above" that he believed would embody a management deciding alone in his corner of the candidate for 2022.

“We are never strong when we stifle debate,” he warns.

Sometimes acknowledging that he "felt closer to a Jean-Pierre Chevènement on sovereignty or to a Zineb El Razoui on secularism", he said he wanted "to bring together goodwill, provided they are patriots and republican".

"We can put France back in order", believes Mr. Retailleau, who pleads to submit to a referendum "the major reforms on the State, immigration or pensions".

© 2020 AFP