Bordeaux (AFP)
The former mayor of Bordeaux Nicolas Florian told AFP on Saturday that he would be named the head of the Republicans list for the regional elections in New Aquitaine this week, confirming comments first made to the newspaper Le Monde.
"This decision will be validated by the national investiture commission (Wednesday) in Paris," said Florian.
"I felt a real desire around my candidacy, which I had not initially considered, on the part of my political family, local elected officials. I was sensitive to the fact that my friends, in Paris and locally, tell me + We need you + The fact of having been mayor of Bordeaux, it unites ".
During the last municipal elections in June, Nicolas Florian was beaten by the ecologist Pierre Hurmic after 73 years of reign of the right in Bordeaux.
He had succeeded fifteen months previously to Alain Juppé, party to the Constitutional Council.
The regional "are not a therapy" or "a way to erase the municipal," assured Mr. Florian, 51 years old.
"I moved on."
"I am a regional advisor and I know the problems of the region well", he added.
"Moreover, the idea of being able to unite the Republican right, to give back a little + boost + in a territory which is complicated for the Gaullist family, that makes sense to me".
Nouvelle Aquitaine, the largest region in France by area, was formed in 2016 from the former regions of Aquitaine, Poitou-Charentes and Limousin.
It is chaired by Alain Rousset (PS) who has not yet officially declared himself a candidate for his succession.
Two elected Girondins have already been invested as head of the list by their party in New Aquitaine: Nicolas Thierry (EELV), vice-president of the regional council in charge of the environment and biodiversity, and Ewige Diaz (RN), regional advisor 33 years old.
For the presidential majority, the regional list should be led by the Landaise Geneviève Darrieussecq (MoDem), Minister of Veterans Affairs.
© 2021 AFP