Paris (AFP)
MP Eric Ciotti assured Wednesday that he would be a candidate "to the end" for the LR nomination for the 2022 presidential election, which must be decided at a party convention on December 4.
"I am a candidate to be so until the end. My determination is total," he told the Association of Parliamentary Journalists (AJP) on the day of the deadline for submitting candidatures for the nomination. LR.
Mr. Ciotti recalled having joined the RPR at the age of 16 and having since been "a non-stop member", an implicit pique to his rivals Xavier Bertrand and Valérie Pécresse, who are no longer members of the formation heir to Gaullism.
Less well placed than the latter and the former European Commissioner Michel Barnier in the polls, he nevertheless considered to embody a "straight line, clear, without any compromise with macronism" reflecting "the opinion of the vast majority of activists "who will choose the candidate.
Mr. Ciotti welcomed the decision of Xavier Bertrand to finally participate in the LR congress in December, believing that with the choice of the boss of Hauts-de-France not to go it alone, the right had "escaped the worst" .
"On December 4 we will have a candidate (...) everyone will be behind him (...) He will be the only candidate capable of beating Emmanuel Macron", assured the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, who does not see " of difficulty "so that the other postulants rally to the winner of the congress.
Noting that the eruption of Eric Zemmour was, according to polls, "losing almost half of his electoral potential to Marine Le Pen", he estimated "that today, the candidate LR could be in the second round".
Stressing that he has nothing in common with the National Gathering, Mr. Ciotti, on the other hand, declared that Eric Zemmour "is someone who sincerely loves France" and "in which I can find myself".
He had already said recently that he would vote for Eric Zemmour rather than for Emmanuel Macron in a possible face-to-face in the second round in April 2022.
On Wednesday, however, he judged "unlikely" that the polemicist will find himself in the second round of the presidential election if he declares his candidacy.
© 2021 AFP