Oral catch-up for Valérie Pécresse who held, Friday, February 18, in Cannet (Alpes-Maritimes), her second major campaign meeting after the false start of the Zenith of Paris, to sit with pugnacity her project of ” new France “.
“I am a free and indomitable woman, I am calm in the storm, I will stay the course until the Elysée”, launched the Republican presidential candidate to the applause of two thousand spectators. This regional meeting was eagerly awaited after that of Sunday in Paris, judged to be a failure by many.
In this stronghold of the Les Républicains (LR) party, the staging was more classic: young LRs seated on stage, several regional tenors intervening before her, two French and European flags in the background… Above all, Valérie Pécresse spoke without notes, pacing the podium and interpellating with questions to the public his speech of nearly an hour, far from the frozen attitude at the desk which had left a calamitous image at the Zenith.
The “ball of the hypocrites”
“Friends, are you ready to weather the storms with me? Are you ready for victory? I am, so follow me! » she launched to the room, arousing massive yeses. A change of tone that the spectators welcomed. “She was flawless”assured after the meeting Geneviève, 75 years old. “She has improved a lot, we feel that she is more comfortable, she was much more convincing than at the Zenith”affirmed Valérie, 47 years old.
In this speech, the candidate, losing ground in the polls, pounded the entourage of Emmanuel Macron, deploring to be “the target of all attacks since January”. “It’s the ball of the hypocrites” with “a totally unhealthy game from LRM [La République en marche] to raise the extremes” and ensure the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, she launched. “Mr Macron is going to present his candidacy, he better apologize”she launched before vilifying the balance sheet of a “zigzag chair” : “Migrant Berezina”, “breathless school”righteousness “drowned and abandoned”… “Five years was too much, ten years will be too late”she asserted.
In contrast, she defended her plan to ” new France “ for post-Covid, where “we will have to repair everything, rebuild everything”. “I want to make my project known, I don’t want it to be deformed, to be reduced to just one of its parts, it’s a real project of alternation with Emmanuel Macron”she assured in the afternoon during a press briefing.
No mention of the “great replacement”
Describing themselves as “the payroll candidate”she lamented in her speech that retirees are the “sacrificed” Macron’s five-year term and promised to restore the universality of family allowances. “We are going to debureaucratize everything, simplify everything” in health, she assured before triggering applause with a firm speech on immigration, in the stronghold department of Eric Ciotti: end of automatic soil and family reunification, asylum at the borders…
No allusion, however, in this speech to the “great replacement” who had created a controversy after the Zenith, the candidate ensuring that “whatever their origin, skin color, identity, [elle sera] the president of national reconciliation, of all French people”.
Valérie Pécresse has also left the sovereign sector to develop other axes of her project, in particular on the “educational nation” and the “back to basics” at the school she promises, and on “an ecology that is not a punishment”. Sometimes accused of not caring enough for Nicolas Sarkozy who, for the time being, has not given him his official support, she paid strong tribute to the former Head of State alongside whom she ” learned a lot “. In “faithful heiress of General de Gaulle”she also promised to “rehabilitate the referendum”in particular on immigration and security, and to relaunch the popular initiative referendum.