They preferred to throw in the towel before the campaign even started. About twenty Republican candidates have given up their nomination for the legislative elections on 12th and 19th June. A choice directly linked to the bitter and historic failure of the right-wing party in the presidential election. Its candidate, Valérie Pécresse, won only 4.78% of the vote. “I felt I had no credibility. I didn’t want to lie to voters”tell the Parisian Soizic Perrault, departmental councilor of Morbihan. “After the failure of Valérie Pécresse, it does not seem possible to me to defend her project, in this context”she had previously announced in a press release on Facebook, on April 26.
>> Legislative 2022: the latest information in our Direct
Same argument 300 kilometers away, in Mayenne. Marie-Hélène Paty, a retired midwife, also announced her retirement on April 26. “Before the presidential election, with my campaign team, we had set ourselves the target of 8%she explains to West France. If Valérie Pécresse did not manage to reach them, we did not continue“. The result is known. “Under these conditions, it is not possible. When we compare the score of the Republicans in 2012 and 2017 … There, it is the broth assured for the legislative elections”. The ex-candidate, who will be replaced by the departmental secretary of LR, also evokes another essential aspect: the financial argument. “I don’t want to find myself reimbursing a campaign budget of 35,000 euros”, she says. For legislative elections, campaign expenses, which are capped at 38,000 euros, are only reimbursed if the candidate obtains 5% of the vote.
“I can understand given everyone’s situation. We have to respect that”confides an LR executive to franceinfo. “We fight for our ideas, but if it’s to make 2% and not be reimbursed for campaign expenses…”, abounds a deputy to AFP. Maxence Henry is one of them. Deputy mayor of Angers, he had been invested in the second constituency of Maine-et-Loire, before retiring on April 25. “We can have fun and say ‘I’m going’, but if it’s to be told that we’ve lost again, it’s not worth ithe tells the Parisian.
“Who would want to go to ruin in an election with a candidate who made less than 5%?”
Maxence Henry, ex-LR candidate for the legislative electionsat the “Parisian”
Faced with the risk of failure, some have also favored their local mandate, which they cannot combine with that of deputy. “Deputy, I will, in fact, be in opposition to the future parliamentary majority, without any capacity for action for our country, forcing me moreover to abandon the mandate which is so close to my heart as mayor of Arcachon”, explained, in a press release, Yves Foulon, the mayor of the famous seaside town of Gironde. Asked by franceinfo, he did not wish to follow up but he also mentions “the disastrous result” of LR in the presidential election as the cause of his withdrawal.
The former mayor of Bordeaux Nicolas Florian, support of Valérie Pécresse, also invokes local considerations to disengage from his investiture. “I prefer to devote myself to my objective of regaining the town hall of Bordeaux”he told AFP.
The disastrous score of Valérie Pécresse, the local issues but also the political line of LR must therefore be taken into account. François Lagarde, candidate in the second constituency of Loiret, gave up being a candidate, ensuring that his party had not learned the lessons of the presidential election. In a press release published on May 1 and relayed by France Bleu, he believes that if “the left has abandoned the people, the right has betrayed the Nation”. “We have lost three consecutive presidential elections and we still hold the same soothing speech from the 80s”, deplores the former vice-president of the metropolis of Orleans, close to the ideas of Eric Ciotti. He criticizes Valérie Pécresse for not having asserted enough of a line of rupture with Emmanuel Macron.
On the contrary, Laura Cinieri, municipal councilor in Saint-Etienne, invested in the second constituency of the Loire, withdrew and left LR, denouncing the right-wing of her party. “I was surprised by the tone and direction given to Valérie Pécresse’s campaign, which aligned itself with Eric Ciotti’s line. This seems to me far from the Republican and Gaullist values that I defend”she explains in an interview, on April 28, at the Progress.
“The point of no return for me was the position taken by the leadership of the Republicans who, between the two rounds of the presidential election, did not want to choose between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.”
Laura Cinieri, former LR candidate for the legislative electionsto “Progress”
These two examples illustrate the ideological fracture within the former party of Nicolas Sarkozy. Not to mention the four outgoing LR deputies, Robin Reda, Marine Brenier, Constance Le Grip and Jean-Carles Grelier, invested by the presidential majority, and for whom an LR opponent must be found.
Officially, however, these premature withdrawals do not unduly worry the party caciques, who claim that they are or will be replaced. LR number 3, Aurélien Pradié, assures AFP that“in 2017, it was worse after the François Fillon affair” with 35 renunciations and that “it’s not very surprising”in particular concerning candidates “not necessarily very seasoned, in difficult ‘circos'”. “I think it’s classic and it’s very very little”, adds to franceinfo a history of the party, which has in mind the same scenario in 1981 and 1988 after the victories of François Mitterrand in the presidential election.
“The most beautiful fights remain the most difficultsupports the outgoing deputy Fabien Di Filippo, candidate for his re-election in Moselle. “Candidate changes and withdrawals are happening everywhere. Look at my house, Reconquest, En Marche and the RN are each on their second or third announced candidate!” But, internally, some are still annoyed by these withdrawals. “I don’t want to give moral lessons by saying that you have to be brave, but when you fight a fight, you fight it to the end”, assures a member of LR.
“It embarrasses those who are invested in them, it sends the wrong signal.”
A member of LRat franceinfo
As for the financial argument, many do not believe it. “They are mistaken in thinking that there is a correlation between the two elections. In the presidential election, the useful vote played out, there the national polls place us at 12%”.
This is what decided Olivier Cauveau to take up the torch after the withdrawal of Yves Foulon, in Gironde. “I was not a candidate for anything and I thought I would spend June 12 and 19 behind a ballot box, as president of the polling station”, says this municipal councilor of Lanton. A fortnight ago, he received a call from Yves Foulon offering to replace him in an attempt to win the seat at LREM. “I thought about it and I said to myself that it was an opportunity to be seized. We are on a circo where the movement is able to make more than 5% [pour être remboursé]. Yves told me that there was still a chance to do better than her”. She is Valérie Pécresse.