France has a new conservative leader, who dreams with the Elysée. Xavier Bertrand has the ambition to be the next president of France, and he took the first step to get there. In the last administrative elections he was reconfirmed as president of the Hauts-de-France region.
In the regional vote, characterized by a very high level of abstention, Bertrand’s party, “Les Republicains”, garnered strong support throughout the country, while Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron failed to confirm the consensus of the last political elections .
And he is therefore the third man in the race for the presidency, “the new face of French politics that could represent a serious challenge for Emmanuel Macron and his re-election ambitions,” according to CNBC.
Bertrand won with about 52% of the vote, beating the far-right candidate, who got about 26% of the vote. “The Front National was stopped – said Bertrand – and we strongly rejected it”. His party, heir to the Gaullist tradition, has yet to choose who will be the candidate in the next elections, and after Sunday’s performance everything indicates that Bertrand is in a good position for the nomination ahead of the presidential elections in spring 2022. Eric Mengus, a professor at the HEC Paris Business School, told CNBC that Bertrand “is currently the best of the potential right-wing candidates in the first round of the presidential election. Yet, the choice is still open and will only take place in autumn “.
Born in Chalons-en-Champagne in 1965, Bertrand is the son of two bank employees. He graduated in Public Law from the University of Reims. He has been married three times and has four children.
Gaullist since he was a teenager, Bertrand has been Minister of Health, spokesman for Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign and also Minister of Labor.
In a portrait published by Politico we read that he considers himself a former insurance salesman, who has been underestimated for most of his life, probably because he never attended one of the exclusive elite schools, from where many leaders of the class are born. French executive.
However, he did some attempt to enter the “privileged”. An article from L’Express explains that in 1995 he entered the Lodge “Les fils d’Isis” in the Grand Orient of France, but during his tenure as minister he avoided attending Masonic meetings and then resigned in 2012.
Thus his has become a “popular” message. On Sunday, after the victory, he offered the gist of his program: work and safety. “And the scream of France that does not arrive at the end of the month – she explained -, which is asked for more sacrifices and in return receives only contempt and indifference”.
The reception of this proposal was positive. In the latest polls, Bertrand is at 15%, third behind Le Pen (27%) and Macron (25%).
For this, he has decided not to go on vacation this summer. He plans to tour all of France, to overtake (right) his main rival within the party, Laurent Wauquiez .
Bertrand considers President Macron “a cold calculator and a destroyer”. In an interview with Le Figaro he said that the French head of state “knows perfectly well the rejection he arouses. He thinks its his only chance to win and have Marine Le Pen face off. This is why he wants to split the right. By defining Le Pen as the only opponent, he concretizes the objective conditions for the victory of the far right. A mortal danger “.
From Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy , on the other hand, he said he had learned a great lesson: “Victory smiles on valor and convictions; calculation is always a loser “.
