Paris (AFP)

Valérie Pécresse, the first woman to chair the Ile-de-France region, supporter of a social and liberal right, is a "hard worker" who also plays to the regional her chances of possibly representing her camp in the 2022 presidential election.

Two months before the election, the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly not yet formalized his candidacy for the regional.

But the suspense is thin, and the polls give him a comfortable lead: 34% in the first round, and a re-election in any case in the second, according to the Ipsos institute.

In a context of health crisis, the former member of Yvelines was able to communicate on her initiatives (masks, tests ...), in the face of a left-wing opposition which is struggling to unite.

The one who succeeded Jean-Paul Huchon (PS) in 2015 repeats it: "my mission and my passion today is the Ile-de-France region", and praises her achievements: 2 billion savings, Freezing the price of the Navigo pass, a laptop for each high school student ... sometimes at the risk of being reframed by the opposition which denounces a "blunder" when announcing devices "which already exist".

"Valérie Pécresse sees herself as the head of the region, while she is the head of the regional council. It drives her crazy not to have more skills", assures a deputy LREM Ile-de-France.

The poll of June 20 and 27 promises to be crucial for her, who promised that a defeat would spell "the end of (her) political career".

But also for the verdict on its ability to convince as 2022 approaches.

The presidential election is certainly not on its radar.

No more than for the regional, she did not apply.

But she distills the marks of interest, and insists that it will take an open primary to decide on the candidate of the right.

A tactic opposite to Xavier Bertrand, already a candidate, and who refuses any tie-breaker.

"His bet is to say + I am returning to the largest region in France, I am a woman. + It would be the incarnation of a form of renewal of political life," says an LR executive who recognizes "a lot of ambition".

- "A different path" -

This ex-baby Chirac, who left LR in 2019, had been the subject of speculation in the summer of 2020, with some already seeing her in Matignon.

Defending a right "firm on the regal, secular but also ecological, liberal, pro-business, feminist and social", Valérie Pécresse had distanced herself from LR in 2017 by creating the Free movement!

in opposition to the president of the party Laurent Wauquiez, considered too populist.

However, she recently toughened her voice on security issues, calling for armed municipal police and "exemplary" prison sentences.

Described as "hardworking" and "structured", Valérie Pécresse, born July 14, 1967 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, is a regular on the honor roll: baccalaureate at 16, HEC, Ena ... A path of excellence which for a long time earned him a wise image, much to his annoyance.

"During my first regional campaign, the nickname that my opponents on the left had given me was + the blonde +. Then it was + headband and pleated skirt +", told in 2019 the former master of requests to the Council of State.

Recruited in 1997 as an internet specialist by Jacques Chirac, she became Member of Parliament for Yvelines in 2002 then twice Minister (Higher Education in 2007 then Budget in 2011).

Raised in Versailles, in "a family of somewhat original intelligentsia", this fan of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy decides at the age of 15 to learn Russian and leaves for Yalta, in a camp of communist youths.

She then began to learn Japanese, which she perfected in Tokyo, selling camcorders and liquor.

"I have always followed a different path so far from others," she says.

Passionate about cinema and series, practicing boxing, this mother of three also deplores the sexism that reigns in politics where "if a man cries out, it is because he has character, that he is a leader. A woman. who gets carried away, she loses her nerves, she's a hysteric ".

© 2021 AFP