At the Les Républicains party, home stretch before the congress – archyworldys

They have four weeks to convince. A month to travel through the French countryside and towns in order to show the activists of the Les Républicains (LR) party that the best candidate for the presidential election for the party can be none other than them. Thursday, November 4, the candidacies of the five LR executives wishing to wear the colors of their political family in 2022 were to be officially accepted. The president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, the Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, but also the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti and the mayor of La Garenne- Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), Philippe Juvin, were all to see, Thursday, their sponsorships validated by the authorities of the party. And their guaranteed participation in the vote in two rounds which should separate them from the 1^er to December 4. The entrepreneur Denis Payre, he had not succeeded in bringing them together on Tuesday, November 2, the deadline for submitting the support of 250 LR parliamentarians. A failure which prompted him to file an appeal with the party leadership.

For others, it’s a race against time that officially begins. The campaign did not wait until Thursday to start, but it is entering a new phase in which some play nothing less than their political destiny.

Xavier Bertrand has been preparing for it for years. He who had categorically refused the principle of an internal race launched the first in the spring of 2021, before circumstances force him to submit to a vote of activists to the taste and smell of a primary. Systematically favorite in national polls, he finds himself having to convince step by step members, many of whom are still angry with him for having left the party in 2017. To win them to his cause, the former Minister of Labor is still considering about thirty trips to all the federations, after having already made more than twenty-five. Objective: to directly reach some ten thousand people.

For Xavier Bertrand, this internal race is a “All-round great” : “The project that I am carrying, he said to World, is faithful to the values ​​of the right and the only one capable of defeating Emmanuel Macron and straightening the country. “ During his various passages in front of the militants, the president of Hauts-de-France has not really done in the lace, explaining that if he was not chosen, the party would lose the election.

The crucial TV debates

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