“The debate on brands is for those who sell tin cans”, mocked the secretary general of the Les Républicains (LR) party, Aurélien Pradié, on Sunday, October 30. The same day, one of his competitors in the race for the presidency of LR, Bruno Retailleau, declared in the JDD that the “Mark” of his party was “dead”. “I’m not sure that having such brutal formulas is respectful for the members”added the deputy of Lot in the program “Political Questions”, on France Inter and France Televisions, in partnership with Le Monde.
“The ‘brand’, I don’t know what that means”, he insisted. For him, “What has been dead for a few years is the popular right, to which everyone has contributed, that’s what we have to rebuild”. Thereby, “the question of the name is the last question that will arise, it is a cosmetic question”.
“What I want is that from January, if I become president of the Republicans, we will organize right-wing states-general throughout France”he added, because “we must first restructure our proposals on all daily subjects”. “At the end of next year, we will have the members vote on the question of the name”he said.
In the past, Aurélien Pradié himself proposed a name change from LR. “I like it less, because it’s the one Nicolas Sarkozy chose, and we want to turn that page”, he said. Nevertheless, “where I like it is that we are in a period when the word ‘republican’ is a beautiful word in the face of all communitarianism, in the face of all those who want our country to fracture”. “This idea of being those who represent the republican idea and ideal, I still like it”he insisted.