"It seems for a few days that I am the woman to be killed", launched the candidate during a public meeting in front of around 600 people in Mouilleron-le-Captif, in the suburbs of La-Roche-sur-Yon.

"Some would like to caricature me by making me a portrait that is not mine", she added, assuring: "I am like a Vendée sailor, I trace my route".

The candidate LR had previously been more precise, denouncing "a mounted controversy".

But "nothing in my speech or in my attitude accredits the Pécresse-bashing of which I have been the victim for a week", she affirmed during a conversation on the sidelines of the trip, denouncing "a strategy totally orchestrated by the macronists who want to discredit me".

"I see in the violence attacks since January, because I am their only target, the unhealthy game" of the presidential party "which wants to find itself alone against Marine Le Pen", she added.

Emmanuel Macron "wants a tacit renewal election but I'm not going to let him do it," she promised.

Valérie Pécresse was coming out of a trying week, between defections from LR to Emmanuel Macron, murderous remarks lent to Nicolas Sarkozy and finally a meeting in front of 7,500 people last Sunday at the Zénith in Paris, the first of this magnitude, deemed missed by commentators.

The candidate, visibly uncomfortable in the exercise, was strongly criticized on the form but also on the substance, for having mentioned the "great replacement" - she has since several times defended herself from any wink on the far right.

"I am made to say the opposite of what I say," she assured Thursday, regretting that the controversy overshadowed her "New France" project.

"There were extremely strong measures in my speech, on school, reindustrialization, the citizens' initiative referendum, rurality, culture... and only one sentence comes out completely diverted from its meaning! is nonsense," she said.

Valérie Pécresse, LR presidential candidate, at a public meeting in Mouilleron-le-Captif, February 17, 2022 in Vendée LOIC VENANCE AFP

During her public meeting on Thursday, she outlined the main lines of this project, describing herself as "a social Gaullist", from the "educational nation" to the takeover of the RTTs through her "transmission shock" on inheritances. and its "youth bank" project to finance their studies.

"Determination"

She then spent a long time discussing with the room, an interactive format that she masters better, answering their questions about housing, youth...

This counter-attack comes as candidate LR is in difficulty in several polls, which place her behind Eric Zemmour: Thursday an Odoxa study credited her with 12% of voting intentions (-7 points compared to December) against 14% at Eric Zemmour (+2) and 18% to Marine Le Pen (+1).

Valérie Pécresse, LR presidential candidate, at a public meeting in Mouilleron-le-Captif, February 17, 2022 in Vendée LOIC VENANCE AFP

Other polls put her in a tight spot with her far-right rivals.

The candidate swept the subject, promising to lead "a campaign of determination" on the ground, as she was doing this weekend: Thursday in Vendée, high place of a fillonist electorate who could turn to Eric Zemmour, and Friday in the South where the far right seduces voters.

After a trip to Mouilleron-en-Pareds (Vendée), the birthplace of Georges Clémenceau and Marshal De Lattre de Tassigny, she met at length with fishermen and farmers in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.

Friday it was to hold a new meeting in front of 2,000 people in the Alpes-Maritimes of Eric Ciotti.

Valérie Pécresse, LR presidential candidate, at a public meeting in Mouilleron-le-Captif, February 17, 2022 in Vendée LOIC VENANCE AFP

"It will do more naturally" than at the Zenith last Sunday, promised before this trip a deputy, convinced that "the new dynamic, it must start on Friday".

Because for a member of his campaign team, "The dynamic must be created before Macron enters the campaign, otherwise we will be caught".

"He will launch a thunderous campaign with a message a day," he said.

© 2022 AFP