Between crash in the presidential election and fear of a rout in the legislative elections, the leaden spring of the Republicans

For Valérie Pécresse, the shock was harsh. 4.7% of the vote, not even enough to have her campaign reimbursed by the State… For the candidate, in debt to the tune of five million euros on a personal basis, the urgency was therefore to bail herself out. She launched a subscription and it still lacks a little more than a million to complete this “Pécresse-thon”. And by the way, she has had the luxury of refusing the donation of 2,000 euros from Nicolas Sarkozy whom she considers guilty of having sabotaged her campaign. As a symbol of these deep divisions which continue to plague the right. From this point of view, nothing is settled.

The Republicans have nevertheless limited the hemorrhage of their deputies towards the majority. They feared a good twenty transfers, there are only a handful, barely half a dozen, like Eric Woerth in Oise, Robin Reda in Essonne or Constance Le Grip in Hauts-de- Seine. Except that the transfer window is not over. There may still be a little movement by Friday, for the closing of the submission of legislative candidacies and, probably, the formation of the government. Many see the boss of the LR group in the Assembly, Damien Abad, joining the majority, perhaps even entering the government.

And transfers could resume after the legislative elections. The deadline promises to be delicate and the LR group could lose up to half of its outgoing.

LR boss Christian Jacob is on the way out. The battle for his succession has not yet begun, and the line is still erratic, between systematic opposition to the government and more or less explicit support for certain reforms such as pensions. The right hopes to have escaped the worst by avoiding the appointment of Catherine Vautrin to Matignon, a Sarkozyist whose promotion would have destabilized her voters a little more.

But LR is worried about the strategy of a radicalized left rallied to the program of the Insoumis. The right fears that the Mélenchon scarecrow, like Eric Piolle’s communitarian glances at the burkini, will end up throwing LR voters into the arms of walkers. Valérie Pécresse paid a high price for this reflex of “useful vote” in favor of Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the presidential election. The right is afraid of undergoing such a spin in the legislative elections.