The best defense is the attack… In any case, that’s clearly what Christian Jacob believes. The President of the Republicans was Thursday, May 5, the guest of France Inter, and the least we can say is that he was not stingy with kindness. About, for example, the union between the four main left-wing parties: “It’s anything and everything. Com muddle, electoral muddle, this staging is incredible. At La France insoumise, they have an idea: it’s chaos, blockage. They only think of that.”
“What the left is doing is totally ridiculing itself.”
Christian Jacobat France Inter
Apparently, Christian Jacob was not convinced by the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union! All the words in the lexicon are pejorative, the arguments are at best reduced to their simplest expression, at worst non-existent, and we even have the emergence of a few superlatives – La France insoumise would not only advocate chaos, but indeed chaos “absolute”.
That said, it is still with the left that Christian Jacob proves to be the friendliest. Here is what he thinks of his former Republican colleagues, who decided to join Emmanuel Macron: “Édouard Philippe, he set fire to all the roundabouts in France, being completely closed, obtuse, not understanding the country. Bruno Le Maire, it’s total financial mismanagement. The attitude of Éric Woerth is quite pathetic. I don’t mind that they had fun being ministers, but in reality what did they bring to the general interest? Nothing.”
There are only superlatives, we are in total disqualification of these officials. But this is still not the best Christian Jacob can do. His most beautiful projections, he reserves them for the President of the Republic: “The positions of En Marche, we are in the sales pitch! Emmanuel Macron, we know, is incapable of carrying out any reform whatsoever, incapable of having a line on anything. We are in a Parisianism, a bureaucracy… It’s anything and everything, no vision on anything. It’s been a five-year term for nothing, it’s a total failure on this five-year term.”
This time that’s it, bingo, Christian Jacob has officially exhausted the derogatory superlatives that political language offers him, and all in just 25 minutes. The President of the Republicans nevertheless gently recalled the main reforms put forward by Valérie Pécresse, but it turns out that, by her own admission, they are extremely close to the project defended by Emmanuel Macron.
What remains, then, for the Republicans to mark their difference? One last thing : “I believe in the territorial roots of our elected officials, and that’s where we Republicans make the difference. I believe in common sense and the reality on the ground. Elected officials rooted in the field, in close contact with their fellow citizens : we are here to represent the territories.”
Territorial anchoring, therefore: this is what would make the project carried by the Republicans unique. The problem is that it is not a proposal. Claiming to have local elected representatives is a result, possibly a success, but in no way a political project. There is no background behind the expression “territorial anchoring”.
And somewhere, we can understand it! It must be remembered that the Republicans are currently suffering from deep fractures, between a current which would not have been against joining the Head of State, another which was eyeing the side of Marine Le Pen or Éric Zemmour, and a third who is still looking for a third way between these two political blocs.
The problem for Christian Jacob, as president of the movement, is to maintain unity despite the divisions. And in order not to alienate anyone, the simplest solution is still to say as little as possible. That’s why he spends so much time shouting at his opponents: it’s ultimately the best way not to get angry with any partner.