ENine months after their historically poor performance in the presidential election, France’s conservative Les Républicains have elected a right-wing hardliner to the board. The result was a disaster for the French People’s Party, which once set the tone: its candidate did not even get five percent of the votes in the presidential election in spring.
A new chairman is to lead the party, which is lying on the ground, back up again. The man for the job: Hardliner Éric Ciotti, who was elected to the board by party members at the weekend with 53.7 percent.
Ciotti aka “Monsieur Security”
The 57-year-old politician from France’s southeast is also known as “Monsieur Sicherheit”. Critics accuse the politician of repeatedly blurring the line between right-wing and right-wing nationalists in the past. For example, last year he said he would prefer far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour Macron.
Ciotti had already taken first place in the first round of voting last Sunday. His opponent, the 62-year-old liberal-conservative Senator Bruno Retailleau, received 46.3 percent of the votes in the runoff. About 91,000 party members were called to vote.
Macron questions cooperation
For the party of the bourgeois right, it is about finding a clear line of content again after a series of failures. The strongest opposition force in France is the right-wing nationalist Rassemblement National (RN) party led by Marine Le Pen.
The center government under President Emmanuel Macron has to deal with the crucial question of whether cooperation with the new party leadership of the Républicains is possible. Because Macron’s Liberals lost an absolute majority in the National Assembly in June’s parliamentary elections, they are dependent on votes from the opposition. The Républicains faction is divided on this issue.
Timid cooperation, yes or no? The question now also depends on the line taken by the new boss. And that’s where it could get uncomfortable for Macron. Already in his candidacy, Ciotti wrote aggressively: “We will never dissolve into Macronism.” He firmly rejected an agreement between the government and the conservatives that Sarkozy had brought into play. “You don’t associate yourself with a force that has damaged France so much,” he told L’Opinion newspaper. What that means in concrete terms for the Républicains in the National Assembly remains to be seen.
