Lille (AFP)
Xavier Bertrand, candidate for his re-election in the Hauts-de-France, is a methodical with declared presidential ambitions who plays the card of the territories and the popular right to lead his political family to the Elysee in 2022 as a savior.
With the approach of the regional ones, the favorite of the polls in Hauts-de-France, 56 years old, fixed the stakes: "if I lose, it will be the end of my political life" - and of the course of the best hope of the right in 2022.
If he wins, however, the Elysee will be the next goal.
What makes a heavyweight of the majority say: "Xavier Bertrand, it is the only type of France which presents itself not to be elected president of region. To say: + vote for me in June and if you trust me , in September, I leave, + I find that implausible. "
To counter this potential opponent of Emmanuel Macron, the macronie sent no less than five ministers, including Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti.
Hardly impressed, the former mayor of Saint-Quentin, convinced that the crisis of "yellow vests" was a "last warning", continues to plow the ground to "never be disoriented, shifted".
Cultivating proximity and pugnacity under a very calibrated message, the former deputy of Aisne is indignant there of agrobashing, deplores here the obstacles to employment and the "national bazaar" induced by centralization.
"Experience and common sense cannot be learned at ENA", likes to repeat this law graduate who intends to remain "within range of slaps and shouts", and claims his past as an agent. insurance in Flavy-le-Martel.
"It's not the same as an investment banker or heiress," he slipped to Point in March, alluding to the CVs of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
"That he does not leave the cenacle is rather positive for him, the + small insurer + who succeeds, that may please France", estimates the northern PS senator Patrick Kanner who sees in him "a tenacious, a needy and this n is not pejorative, which does not let go. But the glass ceiling is very close ".
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His side "very down to earth" earned him "social racism", assures a relative who adds: "Xavier Bertrand has all the faults except one: he is organized".
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An organization that goes through his think tank La Manufacture, regular contacts with parliamentarians, relays at LR that he left in 2017 ... and a precise campaign calendar.
"The strategy has several floors, we are on the first" with the declaration of candidacy for 2022 in March, a prelude to a phased unveiling of the program, says a relative.
"He is hyper-structured but everything is calculated", says more severely an executive of LR who considers him "not a good comrade".
And to add: "you have to be methodical when you have such an ambition but that does not ring true".
According to reported comments, Nicolas Sarkozy would have had a hard tooth towards his former minister (Labor and Health).
"I am used to adversity", but "it is not my engine", assures the former secretary general of the UMP who describes himself as "a social Gaullist" "who wants order and Justice".
In a right in pieces which sometimes looked down on him, "he is our best asset," says LR boss Damien Abad.
That it turns around 15%, far behind Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, does not worry his relatives: "the important thing was that he progresses to the right", assures one.
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To impose himself, this native of Marne, father of four children, the last of whom was from his third marriage, relies on a speech calling for the "recovery" of France, between rehabilitation of the "value of work" and very firm positioning on immigration or security.
In 2022, it will be a question of beating the RN "against whom he has a terrible aversion" according to a relative.
But also to face Emmanuel Macron who placed in strategic positions Gérald Darmanin and Jean Castex, two close to this "baby Chirac".
"You have to burn your ships, it's my way of operating", affirms Xavier Bertrand, who assures him: "the Presidency of the Republic is where we have the most possibilities to change things".
© 2021 AFP