this text is “an obstacle course for Eric Ciotti”, confides a close friend of the president of the Republicans

Will the pension reform unite a majority of deputies? The question particularly agitates the ministries two days before the vote on the text, in the version that will come out of the Joint Joint Commission on Wednesday, March 15. It is above all the votes of the group Les Républicains that everyone is trying to anticipate, everyone trying to count the votes for and against the text. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne plays big. But there is another who could see his political future compromised: Eric Ciotti, the brand new president of the Republicans who is facing an internal rebellion.

>> Pension reform: “We will be scared to the end”, confides a Macronie executive, before the vote in the Assembly

“What credibilityé” for a president who does not hold his troops? Even in his camp, we ask ourselves the question. This text is “an obstacle course for Ciotti“, confides a relative. Barely elected, he negotiated with the Prime Minister, before noting the dissensions in his own troops, under the impulse in particular of an Aurélien Pradié.Authority cannot be decreed, you have to know how to manage, anticipate“, tackles a right-wing deputy.

“More than half of the group will vote for”

To mobilize behind him, the party president multiplied the calls for responsibility and himself made phone calls to the ten elected officials still tempted by an abstention. While his accomplice Laurent Wauquiez alerted the twenty parliamentarians he is close to “the political nature of the text and the risk of division of the right“.

Among Eric Ciotti’s supporters, we try to put things into perspective: “More than half of the group will vote for” reform. “We have between 33 and 35 votes, that’s for sure!“, we slip. “Still he must not bluff“, wonders a framework of the presidential majority.

To try to tune their violins, the LR deputies are invited to a special pension group meeting on Wednesday March 15, in the evening, at the end of the Joint Joint Commission, in which the president of the group Olivier Marleix will represent the deputies of LAW.