The programs of Valerie Pecresse, presidential candidate for Les Republicains in France. The article by Enrico Martial
At the French presidential elections of 2022, Valerie Pecresse will be a candidate for Les Republicains, the traditional party of the French right. Her polls give her around 11% of voting intentions. In the primaries that ended on December 4, members and non-delegates overtook figures of the first magnitude, including Michel Barnier, the European Brexit negotiator, perhaps the best known in Italy, and Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts Region -de-France, the favorite he had been preparing for almost six years.
It is still difficult to imagine her in the second round facing Emmanuel Macron. In the polls before her are Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour. The person is combative, nicknamed “Pecresse la Tigresse”. She herself refers to the models of Margareth Thatcher and Angela Merkel.
Victory in the primary was relative in absolute terms. In the first round (since they did the two rounds even with the primary), four out of five candidates traveled with similar percentages and reduced gaps: Eric Ciotti, deputy and exponent of the Alpes-Maritimes department at 25.59% (28,844 votes), Valerie Pecresse, 25%, Michel Barnier 23.93%, Xavier Bertrand 22.36% (25,213 votes, 3,600 votes from the first comer). Only doctor Philippe Juvel was left behind, with 3,532 votes and 3.13%. In the second round, on 4 December, Eric Ciotti, who represents the most radical winger with sympathies for Zemmour, was left alone: ​​all the candidates supported Pecresse, who won with 60.95%.
It will also have been a lottery game with a few thousand votes, but in the end it was Pecresse who prevailed. Economic training (HEC- Haute Ecole de Commerce), ENA, young technical adviser to Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s minister for higher education and then to the budget, president of the Parisian Region Ile de France since December 2015, taking it away from the socialists, reconfirmed to June 2021. Tenacious, capable of toughness, with a reactive staff, and a public figure built in detail. Observers in France wait to measure her effect on the presidential campaign. Meanwhile, to understand the situation, it should be noted that the increase in party members and therefore voters in the primaries took place in urban areas, and therefore in the Parisian region, and then rather in support of it.
In the speech after the announcement of the victory, Eric Ciotti was at his side. Pecresse collected its national identity brand (or nationalist: a fairer France), and then re-launched the contributions of the other three candidates: saving and improving public services (of the doctor Juvel with more efficiency and resources), reducing the number of public officials, as Xavier Bertrand says in a laissez-faire logic – but everyone says so – and reforming Europe, with a reference to Michel Barnier, and certainly not to strengthen it.
It was not ecumenical formalism: putting these positions together (nationalism, liberalism and statism together hand in hand) means broadening the spectrum of consensus, attempting to recover votes both from the ultra-right of Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, and from the macronism that had hoarded Republicains. Just a few days ago, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, joined Edouard Philippe’s Horizons party in support of Macron, and they were both from LR, like a nice line of ministers from the current majority.
The road won’t be easy. After the primary, Eric Zemmour invited Eric Ciotti supporters to come with him. Marine Le Pen, measured the relative danger, dismissed Precresse saying that after the defeat in the first round she will certainly invite Macron to vote.
The latter did not pronounce, taking time while he was visiting the Gulf countries.
With Valerie Pecresse as candidate of the Republicains, a political axis is confirmed even a little more to the right, in a trend that comes from Nicolas Sarkozy. Among other things, he proposed that crimes committed in critical areas (the banlieue, or more precisely the “republican reconquest areas) be punished with an aggravating circumstance. He intends to create immigration quotas with agreements with individual states, as well as strengthening the police and the judiciary with resources and people (but this is said by many). Eric Ciotti proposed a “French Guantanamo” for terrorists and to leave Schengen. It has already been understood that the guard asked on Sunday for a full adaptation to her line, while she had distanced herself from the topic “Guantanamo” from the TF1 evening news on Saturday evening.
