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France’s conservative Les Républicains (LR) whittled down its five presidential candidates to two on Thursday in the first round of the party primary, with right-wing southern MP Eric Ciotti and head of the Paris region Valérie Pécresse progressing to a run-off.
In a surprise result, Ciotti came first among the five challengers with 25.6 percent of votes cast by registered members, while Pécresse took 25 percent. The results spell disappointment for former EU negotiator Michel Barnier and ex-health minister Xavier Bertrand, whom many saw as favourites at the start of the primary process.
Despite Ciotti edging her in the first round, Pécresse emerged as favourite in the runoff as the three other candidates swiftly threw their support behind her. The Paris region boss is widely seen as LR’s most moderate candidate, whose vision for France’s conservatives is inspired by the distinctly centre-right approach of ex-British prime minister David Cameron.
Ciotti performance was the ‘upset’
Ciotti was not a favourite in the earlier days of the campaign, but his no-nonsense talk on restoring the state’s authority, defending France’s national identity and promoting economic liberalism struck a chord with members.
“I wanted to ensure this campaign was based on the truth, the truth about this country’s decline,” Ciotti told journalists after the result.
‘Narrowed political space’
LR traces its origins back to iconic conservative Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French during World War II and the founding president of the Fifth Republic. Mainstream conservatives dominated French politics for much of the post-war era – but LR has struggled to heal divides and recast its identity after upstart centrist Emmanuel Macron’s won the presidency and redrew the political landscape in 2017.
Since entering the Élysée Palace, Macron has moved to the right along with the centre ground of French politics – encroaching on LR’s territory. The conservatives also risk losing out to France’s ascendant far-right, as Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen and polemicist Eric Zemmour stand at second and third place in the polls, behind Macron.
Opinion polls before the party’s first-round vote showed Ciotti would perform weakest of the five in the April presidential election, with 6 percent of voter support nationally. They projected Pécresse would garner 10 percent.
The challenge “besetting” LR since 2017 is “to consolidate and grow a support base that is being siphoned off by Macron in the centre-right and by Le Pen, and now Zemmour, on the far-right”, Jim Shields, a professor of French politics at Warwick University, told FRANCE 24. “Asserting a strong presidential candidacy in such a narrowed political space will be the single most difficult task awaiting the winner of the LR nomination.”
But LR showed why they were the only mainstream force Macron fears when they topped France’s regional polls in June – in large part thanks to a party machine that mobilised its supporters to get out and vote.
“The hope for the party must be that it remains a formidable campaigning machine with a deeply embedded presence across France’s regions, departments and towns and a newly energised and expanded membership,” Shields said. “This contrasts sharply with Macron, Le Pen and Zemmour, none of whom has anything like the same capacity to wage an extensive ground campaign and rally grassroots support across the country.”
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)
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