"It is an important moment, but I do not find myself there" because "all my life I fought against the National Front", he explained after a day of passes of arms with several LR.

Today "the question is simple: what is our porosity with the extreme right? The question is not clear at all," added Mr. Muselier, who accused Eric Ciotti of "conveying Zemmour's ideas to the 'interior of LR'.

Renaud Muselier had announced Tuesday his support for Xavier Bertrand in the race for the LR nomination, but the latter declined due to "unacceptable" attacks against Eric Ciotti, whom the president of the Paca region had qualified as "false nose of the extreme right ".

One week before the LR Congress where members will choose their presidential candidate, Michel Barnier and Valérie Pacresse then gave their support to Eric Ciotti.

"Ciotti called on Bertrand to react, Barnier to react, it is not freedom of expression", assured Mr. Muselier, regretting that the slogan is "do not touch Ciotti".

According to him "an omerta arises in my family where questions should not be asked. One of them is: if we are not in the second round, what do we do?"

but "Macron against the far right, I have no shadow of a doubt," he added.

The positioning against Emmanuel Macron had already been at the heart of a psychodrama during the regional Paca, which had led to the resignation of LR of the mayors of Nice Christian Estrosi and Toulon Hubert Falco.

"It is a political drift insofar as there is more leader, course" and "the mistakes become irreconcilable", regretted Mr. Muselier, saying "very unhappy" to leave his political family of 25 years which he considers "in very great danger".

However, he did not say that he would join Emmanuel Macron or the Horizons movement of Edouard Philippe, assuring to be "in a logic of rupture, not of landing".

© 2021 AFP