“If you can no longer speak in a party, it’s called a sect”, estimates Monday April 25 on franceinfo the mayor LR of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau. The day after Emmanuel Macron’s re-election, and while Les Républicains achieved their worst score (4.8%) in a presidential election, he will ask his party’s strategic council on Tuesday “a new political line”. Gaël Perdriau says he is in favor of “a governance pact” with Emmanuel Macron around “imperative pillars” what would be “social emergency”, “environmental emergency” and “the reaffirmation of the values of the Republic”. He castigates “the line of Ciotti, Morano and Retailleau”, “the right of the right” with whom the break line is “definitive”and wishes to reaffirm the “humanist and social line” of his party.
franceinfo: Which side do you lean between those who hesitate between Emmanuel Macron and the union of the rights?
Gael Perdriau: What I’m asking Christian Jacob is to hold an extraordinary national council of Republicans to set a new political line. I have been denouncing our right-wing drift for more than a year. I feared the consequences and she finally represented 4.8% of the votes in the presidential election, the lowest score obtained in the history of the right and the center, since I remind you that centrist parties have come to strengthen us . Conclusions and consequences must be drawn. I plead for the LR to find a humanist and social line. That of a moderate right which can both recall the social emergency to which Emmanuel Macron has not responded, since in my opinion the crisis of “yellow vests” has not been settled, but also the environmental emergency which cannot be supported by a single political party, and the urgency of reaffirming the values of the Republic. If we don’t rely on these three pillars, it’s over for LRs. If Christian Jacob refuses dialogue, that means that we are in a party where we can no longer speak. It’s called a sect.
What relationship do you imagine with the majority?
I think she must be demanding. Emmanuel Macron will start his second and last term, so we have the future to build. Either we are demanding actors, through a governance pact on the three imperatives that I have just mentioned, or we become critical commentators on public life without participating in it, at the risk of disappearing completely. The French have nothing to do with knowing who will be a candidate for the legislative elections. They want to know what social project we are carrying out for the next thirty or forty years, what future we are offering our children, what living conditions we are going to reserve for seniors who have well deserved to enjoy their retirement and what is offered to working people in a world where work is changing. We are talking about purchasing power, we must probably distribute the creation of wealth in a totally different way. Everything else is political politics that will take us where it led Valérie Pécresse, at 5%.
Can you still work with certain personalities within LR?
Between those who place themselves on the line of Ciotti, Morano and Retailleau -we are going to say to the right of the right, who would see themselves creating a union of the rights- and those of my line who propose a moderate right, I do believe that the break line is consumed. I have already been removed from the vice-presidency of LR for having said too much what I think. We can see where this has gotten us! Deadlocked, at 4.5%. There is no reason for the legislative elections to be different if we adopt the same behavior. I don’t want to be the shovel that will dig the LR tomb. I imagine another future for our party and for France. Emmanuel Macron faces the major challenge of reconciling the French. He needs the support of Republicans who secured his re-election on the basis of a clear contract.
Did you have trouble with the comments of certain members of your party concerning Marine Le Pen?
Clearly! I denounced them gradually because I found them scandalous with complacency, in particular the line of Eric Ciotti. I very much regret that Valérie Pécresse followed him without asking any questions. There was another voice to carry between the union of the rights and the neo-liberal policy of Emmanuel Macron. She missed an opportunity for France. I regret it for all those who were unable to choose the evening of the first round between Emmanuel Macron and the far right. How can we hesitate if we truly share the values that founded Les Républicains? This is unacceptable and I think it is a definite breaking line.