It is a historic debacle for the party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy: the candidate Les Républicains (LR) Valérie Pécresse recorded Sunday April 10 the worst result of a contender from the traditional right in the presidential election, even failing to exceed the 5% mark, synonymous with reimbursement of campaign expenses by the State.
Result: the party's finances are in a "critical situation" and Valérie Pécresse on Monday called on the French for "emergency aid" to "complete the financing" of her candidacy.
If the defeat was predictable, the blow is no less terrible.
Caught between the liberal line of Emmanuel Macron and the sovereignism of Éric Zemmour, the president of the Île-de-France region had to carry out an impossible mission within a deeply divided party.
During the campaign, many LR executives such as former Budget Minister Éric Woerth and former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced their support for Emmanuel Macron.
Others, like Guillaume Peltier, have chosen to join the candidate of Reconquête!.
As for Nicolas Sarkozy, not only has he never expressed the slightest support for the candidate from his political family, but his harsh criticisms have been regularly relayed by the press.
According to Martial Foucault, the director of Cevipof, LR voters "massively voted useful. His score below 5% means that voters compatible with Emmanuel Macron joined him in the first round. After the PS, LR is completely crushed “, adds the political scientist, interviewed by France 24.
03:34
What line against the far right
?
Internally, Valérie Pécresse also had to deal with the hard line embodied by the unsuccessful candidate for the primary Éric Ciotti, trying to achieve a synthesis between a pro-European centrist discourse and positions close to those of the far right on questions of immigration and identity.
Fractures within LR which burst into the open as soon as the results of the first round of the presidential election were announced.
"I will vote in conscience Emmanuel Macron to prevent the coming to power of Marine Le Pen and the chaos that would result from it", assured Valérie Pécresse.
Conversely, Éric Ciotti announced for his part on TF1 explaining "that personally, he would not vote Emmanuel Macron".
>> To see: right turn in the countryside of Valérie Pécresse, who is struggling to convince
After this historic defeat, which line will win?
That of an identity and conservative right carried by the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes and Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, or that of a "constructive" opposition, close to the presidential majority?
Can these two currents continue to coexist for another five years within the same party?
All these questions should be addressed Monday at LR during a strategic committee followed by a meeting of the political office which promises to be stormy.
It will be for the party to establish a clear position vis-à-vis the far right in the second round but also to discuss the legislative elections of June.
The crossing of the desert continues at the PS
At the Socialist Party, the time is also settling scores.
The PS recorded, with Anne Hidalgo as candidate, its worst score in a presidential election.
The mayor of Paris gathered 1.74% of the vote on Sunday, a Lilliputian score which opens a period of great uncertainty for the Epinay congress party.
First, this result weakens the already delicate financial situation of the PS.
The party would have borrowed 800,000 euros, the amount reimbursed by the state for candidates arriving below the 5% mark and also asked its federations to put their hands in their pockets.
If the procedure is classic for the presidential election, the elected officials have dragged their feet a lot, unhappy to empty the coffers while crucial legislative elections are looming in June.
Because it is one of the paradoxes of the Socialist Party: if it weighs almost nothing at the national level, its local anchorage is still considerable, with a hundred parliamentarians and the control of about thirty departments and several large cities. including Paris, Rennes, Nantes, Bordeaux and Lille.
"I am not sure that the PS or LR can recover their health during these legislative elections", however predicts Jérémie Peletier, director of studies at the Jean Jaurès Foundation.
"We note that the results of the legislative elections are similar to those of the presidential election and these elections tend to marry the results of the second round", explains the expert interviewed on France 24.
07:15
In an attempt to salvage the situation, PS executives, like its first secretary, Olivier Faure, have already called for the union of left-wing forces, from communists to ecologists, in anticipation of the election of June.
🔴STATEMENT |
I launch a solemn appeal to the forces of the left and ecologists, social, to the citizens ready to commit themselves in order to build together a pact for social and ecological justice pic.twitter.com/KHULfBgimY
— Olivier Faure (@faureolivier) April 10, 2022
A shrinking political space
Beyond the financial question, the Socialist Party is playing its political survival.
A survival that inevitably involves the reconstruction of a credible government left.
François Hollande has already mentioned the need for this overhaul, but the return of the former President of the Republic is making the young socialist guard cringe and some fear a new clan war.
The revelation of a secret dinner held on Wednesday evening should not help improve the mood.
The meal at the questure of the Senate brought together Anne Hidalgo, her deputy campaign director Patrick Kanner, the mayors of Lille and Nantes Martine Aubry and Johanna Rolland, the president of Occitanie Carole Delga and the former head of state François Hollande .
The boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, had not been invited to this meeting, the objective of which was to reflect on the future of the party.
"Such a meeting on the eve of the first round of the presidential election. The rest is already being written on the sly?", Was particularly annoyed the former Minister of Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll.
Such a meeting the day before the first round of the presidential election.
The rest is already being written on the sly?
@lemondefr https://t.co/79lSngGSXQ
— Stéphane Le Foll (@SLeFoll) April 6, 2022
If all the figures of the PS ensure that the party, with a history of more than a century, will recover from its failure, the challenges are expected to be colossal.
The political space is reduced to a trickle for the socialists, crushed by social democracy in the manner of Emmanuel Macron and the "popular pole" of the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who imposes himself on the left as the first political strength.
"Today there is a tripartition of political life with a center and center-right bloc embodied by Emmanuel Macron, a left and far left bloc with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a populist far-right bloc embodied by Marine Le Pen", analyzes Jérémie Peletier.
In this new configuration, the former government parties, PS like LR, will have a hard time getting out of the game. If their disappearance is not yet on the agenda, their future is already dotted.
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