Paris (AFP)

Which candidate for the right in 2022?

The main contenders now on the starting line, LR has a few weeks before deciding on a possible primary, which Xavier Bertrand rejects anyway.

The Republicans launched Monday a giant survey of 15,000 sympathizers of the right and the center, survey "extraordinary" which wants to be a tool "of aid to the decision", according to the political scientist Pascal Perrineau.

Clearly, the poll will not designate the right-wing presidential candidate.

But it will make it possible to know which themes are priorities for the electorate, and how it looks at the candidates.

Five suitors will be tested: Valérie Pécresse, Michel Barnier, Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin, all acquired in the principle of a possible primary, as well as Xavier Bertrand, who intends to appear at the Elysee without going through the tie-breaker.

The LR mayor of La Garenne-Colombe and candidate for the right-wing primary for 2022, Philippe Juvin, August 29, 2020 in La Baule Loic VENANCE AFP / Archives

Last week saw the renunciation of Bruno Retailleau and Laurent Wauquiez who was a heavyweight on the right wing.

With this double package, can LR save on a primary?

The party leadership is very reluctant to this tie-breaking process, which it believes is synonymous with divisions, even if, according to an Ifop poll for the JDD, 66% of LR supporters are in favor.

Valérie Pécresse repeated this weekend at Le Parisien how much the primary seemed to her "more essential than ever".

Better "a competition now rather than a division later," she explained on Europe 1.

Valérie Pecresse in Brive-la-Gaillarde in Corrèze on August 28, 2021 MEHDI FEDOUACH AFP

For the president of Ile-de-France, who left LR in 2019, a primary would be an asset in legitimacy.

"I will always play collective. I am no longer with the Republicans but I feel deeply on the right and I will accept the rules of the game," she assured Saturday in Brive where she was making her comeback.

The call to the "collective" was a mantra this weekend to the various returns of the right: "I will not participate in any division", promised La Baule Michel Barnier, "the condition of the primary is the unity ", added Philippe Juvin, while Eric Ciotti, in the hinterland of Nice, called for a" peaceful "campaign.

Former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in La Baule, for the summer schools of the Les Républicains party, August 28, 2021 Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS AFP

- "Loyalty" -

The right, certain that its ideas are in the majority in the country and that it can win in 2022 after ten years in the opposition, wants to show that it has learned from the deadly divisions that have regularly weighed down.

In this context, Xavier Bertrand's lone rider, convinced that an election is the meeting "between a man and the French" and refuses to bow to the primary of a party he left in 2017, begins to creak teeth.

Xavier Bertrand, August 25, 2021 in Chinon in Indre-et-Loire, where he commemorated a massacre of the Nazis in the neighboring town of Maillé, August 25, 1944 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP / Archives

"I see the dangers posed by solitary adventures on our chances of victory," said Laurent Wauquiez on Sunday, who himself withdrew "so as not to add division to the division".

"All those who wish to have the support of this political family must respect the rules of the game. It is a question of loyalty", assured Michel Barnier on Monday.

Because "there is no natural leader," Eric Ciotti recalled Monday.

LR deputy Eric Ciotti on the benches of the National Assembly in Paris, May 11, 2021 MARTIN BUREAU AFP / Archives

No natural leader, but perhaps last-minute candidates: the entrepreneur Denis Payre declared himself Sunday for the primary, the LR mayor of Cannes David Lisnard assured Le Figaro that he "would make a point" at the time of the congress, the names of Rachida Dati and Julien Aubert are also mentioned ...

LR will decide on the organization or not of a primary during a congress on September 25, with the aim of nominating its candidate at the end of November.

In the meantime, around forty mayors from the moderate right and from the center, including former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, promised on Sunday to structure themselves to "weigh" more as 2022 approaches. The mayor of Toulon Hubert Falco, party of LR during the regional, openly supported Emmanuel Macron on Monday.

And more to the right remains the questioning Eric Zemmour, who maintains speculation about his candidacy in 2022. "The ideas that I defend have already united the right for years," tweeted the polemicist on Sunday.

© 2021 AFP