"I think we can die of our contradictions, we are there," warned Wednesday the boss of LR senators Bruno Retailleau, according to whom the future of the right "is played out" in the debate on pension reform.

"It's hellish, I don't know if we'll get over it," sighs a great elected LR.

The Republicans are shaken by an internal revolt of several deputies who, behind Aurélien Pradié, demand in the name of the "popular right" concessions on the consideration of long careers.

Their intransigence goes badly with their colleagues who find in the reform markers of the right, and welcome important concessions torn from the government, in particular on small pensions.

"Some in our ranks today defend the ideas of the socialist party! How to become credible again after that?", annoys the mayor of Meaux Jean-François Copé in Le Parisien.

Some tenors fear a failure of the reform fatal to the image of "party of government" claimed by LR.

"If it doesn't happen because of us, LR will bear the responsibility for years," sighs MEP Agnès Evren, who fears seeing her family fall into the "trap of deadly divisions" set by Emmanuel Macron.

"It's the credibility and even the survival of our family that are at stake," she adds.

MEP, Paris councilor and vice-president of LR Agnes Evren in Paris, October 13, 2022 © JOEL SAGET / AFP/Archives

For the moment, among the 61 LR deputies "twenty have questions" to vote for the text, recognized Eric Ciotti on Wednesday.

The first ballots on Tuesday gave an idea of ​​the balance of power: 27 LR deputies voted for the introductory article (of a budgetary nature) of the bill, 15 against, and 8 abstained.

Aurélien Pradié did not vote.

To make matters worse, the senators were exasperated by the amendment (deemed inadmissible) tabled by another rebel, Pierre-Henri Dumont, who wanted to abolish their pension plan.

"A la Sarko"

So the pressure is growing on the 36-year-old deputy, who is also the party's executive vice-president.

After a tense strategic committee on Tuesday, Gérard Larcher gave him an ultimatum on Wednesday, calling on him to pass the law "if he really feels part of our political family".

"He will vote for the reform", assured Wednesday on radio Sud Eric Ciotti who spoke several times with the deputy of Lot.

Some believe that the slingers benefit from wavering at the head of the party and the group, in a political family attached to charismatic leaders.

And all eyes are on Laurent Wauquiez, whom Eric Ciotti intends to nominate presidential candidate for 2027.

Laurent Wauquiez (2nd to left), then president of LR, and the president of the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council Eric Ciotti (2nd to right) at the Palais de l'Europe in Menton, in the Alpes-Maritimes, June 30, 2018 © VALERY HACHE / AFP/Archives

"He should go there, à la Sarko, to assert himself," said a pro-reform deputy.

"If he banged his fist on the table saying + the boss is me, the blows to take are for me but we go there together" +, maybe that would put some order in all that ..."

The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, in a media cure strategy, had dinner on Monday with Eric Ciotti and the boss of the LR deputies Olivier Marleix.

On the pension reform, he had indicated during his wishes at the end of January that the reform was "not the one" he would have made, while invoking a "principle of responsibility" consisting of "not opposing".

"Laurent Wauquiez does what is useful, it does not necessarily pass through public expression", but also through work of conviction with his skeptical relatives, we are assured in his entourage.

Several deputies reluctant to vote are indeed elected in Rhône-Alpes, and feel the rejection that the reform arouses in their constituencies.

But they are also "lucid about the fact that we are living in days that weaken the right", adds this same source, convinced that this "shadow work" will bear fruit.

© 2023 AFP