Paris (AFP)

The LR mayor of Toulon Hubert Falco announced on Wednesday that he was leaving his party deploring the "sauve-qui-peut" and the "narrowing of the line" of LR "which forgets the essential issues to which it must respond".

"I do not deny anything, I do not criticize anything, but I decide to regain my freedom. I therefore leave the Republicans party," he said in a statement, the day after a meeting where the party excluded everything agreement with LREM for regional Paca.

For this mayor considered Macron-compatible, "not to be in favor of the union, while the threat of the coming to power of the National Rally has never been so strong, comes down to playing its game".

While the RN is given the lead in the first round by polls in Paca, he also considers "irresponsible" to "unequivocally condemn any support in such a politically sensitive region".

"In the so difficult context that our country is currently going through, the trials of intent and the agitations of the LR microcosm at the Parisian level seem to me very derisory and out of place", adds Mr. Falco, deploring the "sterile controversies, at the time where our country and our territory need trust, harmony and union more than ever ".

"I was elected 18 times, including 12 times in the first round. These results, I owe them only to my work and to the confidence that the voters placed in me" and "it is to them that I have to be accountable and only to them, with all due respect to the supporters of the + Jacobin + line of my political formation, "he adds.

The Republicans, up against the wall by statements Sunday by Jean Castex on an LREM-LR alliance in the Paca region, obtained Tuesday from Renaud Muselier the assurance that he would take neither minister nor LREM parliamentarian on his list.

In exchange for which the outgoing regional president was able to regain the support of the party.

© 2021 AFP