• Eric Ciotti, Aurélien Pradié and Bruno Retailleau are candidates to lead the Les Républicains party.

  • About fifteen days before the election, the three candidates clashed on Monday evening during a televised debate on LCI. 

  • Assist, CSC, technical gesture ... Since we are in the middle of the world, we summarize the evening football style.

A battle to take the lead from the right.

Eric Ciotti, Aurélien Pradié and Bruno Retailleau are candidates for the presidency of Les Républicains.

About 15 days before the Party Congress, the three men debated for nearly two hours on the LCI set on Monday evening.

Did you prefer to watch the football world rather than the political show?

Don't worry, we'll give you a recap of the evening (without straying too far from the round ball).


The surprise technical gesture: Pradié and the firefighters

It is a tradition at the start of televised debates, each candidate had a handful of minutes to present themselves.

Bruno Retailleau insisted on the need to "gather on a clear line" his political family, Eric Ciotti explained to LR members that it was finally time "to dare the right".

Very classic.

But Aurélien Pradié released a more surprising technical sequence.

“I am the youngest, but I am also the only one to have been mayor.

Of the three candidates, I am also the only one to have been… a volunteer firefighter.

From this experience, I learned the courage and the sense of the collective, this desire to do things together, beyond the divisions which have cost the right so much, ”slipped the deputy from Lot.

Nobody expected it.

Attractive.

The tough tackle: Macron lambasted on immigration

While the exchanges were courteous, the debate became more intense when the three candidates were asked about the 234 migrants from the Ocean Viking and the government's migration policy.

Eric Ciotti sent the first tackle to the President of the Republic, roughly at knee level.

"In this case, Bérézina or Waterloo, as we can call it as we want, but in any case, it's Italy 1 and France 0. Meloni was courageous and efficient [the Italian leader refused to welcome the migrants] , Mr. Macron was cowardly and powerless […] Hollande and Macron are the same thing!

“Attacks taken up by Aurélien Pradié and Bruno Retailleau.

"Ocean Vikings is the mark of Emmanuel Macron's migratory laxity", thus dropped the boss of the LR senators.

Misalignment: Pradié on retreats

The three candidates had agreed on just about everything until then, but the LR defense then fell apart on the reform of executive pensions, which will be debated in Parliament at the start of next year.

“If the reform corresponds to what we have always wanted, there is no reason why I should not vote for it”, launched Bruno Retailleau.

Same position for Eric Ciotti.

“We have a duty of responsibility, not chaos.

If it saves the pension system and if it protects the retirees of today and tomorrow, I will vote for it”.

But Aurélien Pradié was not at all aligned with his colleagues.

“I will not make the short scale to Emmanuel Macron on the pension reform.

At a time when we want to clarify our positions, it may be time not to serve him the soup, ”said the deputy, even proposing to table a motion of censure if the government used a 49.3 on this subject.

The goal against his camp: Retailleau sinks Sarkozy

We could not spend an evening with the right without mentioning Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bruno Retailleau was not kind to the former President of the Republic.

“We have to accept a break with our past.

If approximately 10 million voters have left us, it's not because they misunderstood us, it's because we haven't always matched the courage of our ambitions”, launched the former right-hand man of François Fillon.

A CSC (goal against his camp) which did not please Eric Ciotti.

“I hear the criticism.

The differences [with him], I assume them.

But the last one who made us win is still Nicolas Sarkozy, I vibrated with him.

I wouldn't want our history to be erased either, for us to be in political wokism on the right, ”replied the MP for Nice,

The decisive pass: Ciotti caviar for Laurent Wauquiez

A few seconds before the end of the match, Eric Ciotti sent a nice caviar to Laurent Wauquiez for the 2027 presidential election. “We must eliminate the primaries and I want him to be a candidate because I think he is the best.

We must not delay”.

Aurélien Pradié also cited the boss of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region as a potential candidate from the right, but lip service.

“He's the one who prepares the best, but we have to give him time to talk to the French again”.

Bruno Retailleau, he was more reserved, evoking a vote of the militants to decide between the future candidates.

Policy

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Policy

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  • Bruno Retailleau

  • Eric Ciotti

  • The Republicans (LR)

  • Right

  • Debate