Europe 1 with AFP 19:18, August 27, 2021

The leader of the senators Les Républicains, Bruno Retailleau, announced on Friday that he would not stand for the presidential election of 2022. There will therefore be four candidates for the primary from the right: Valérie Pécresse, Michel Barnier, Éric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin.

After Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of senators LR Bruno Retailleau in turn announced Friday that he was giving up running for the 2022 presidential election, believing that he was not "the best placed to beat Emmanuel Macron".

"Today, the candidatures are multiplying. I will not add to this dispersion", declared to

Le Figaro

the elected representative of Vendée, classified on the right among the Republicans, while four elected representatives are placed in the ranks of a possible primary of the right: Valérie Pécresse, Michel Barnier, Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin.

"Not in the best position to beat Macron"

And to add: "Lucidity is to recognize in all sincerity that I am not in the best position to beat Emmanuel Macron." Referring to a "duty of responsibility and lucidity", Bruno Retailleau explains that "other candidates on the right are better known, either because they were ministers, or because they were highly publicized by the regional campaign" . "Wanting to exist at all costs, even at the cost of the collective, is not my conception of politics," he says.

Thursday evening, the president of the Auvergne Rhône Alpes region had also given up on the primary, so as not to add division to the division.

This renunciation is "as much a call for union as a call to reason: the right must give itself the means of a single candidacy, thanks to the primaries", affirmed the senator of Vendée.

As for Xavier Bertrand, who refuses to comply with any primary, "I still want to believe that he will reconsider his position", affirms Bruno Retailleau on the eve of a weekend of all-round returns to the right.

"In politics, you never win alone, any more than you rule alone," he warns. 

Awareness deficit

His decision was immediately greeted by LR deputy Julien Aubert, also classified on the right wing of the party, satisfied that "the all-to-ego is not as widespread as feared".

But "in terms of the quality and the plurality of the debate, the loss is severe, after the withdrawal of Laurent Wauquiez," he tweeted.

Bruno Retailleau, 60, had very early shown his interest in the presidential election, assuring in September 2019 that "why not" he could run.

But he never succeeded in filling his notoriety deficit.

He had already given up being a candidate for the head of LR after the departure of Laurent Wauquiez, in 2019, to "avoid a war of leaders".

Last fall, he annoyed the leadership of LR by pleading for a primary in order to avoid "a choice of between-self" of "the right from above". He defended a "preferential" system, one round, which could inspire the tie-breaker finally chosen if LR decides to organize a primary.