Presidential 2022: Michel Barnier launches, Laurent Wauquiez gives up – archyde

Two rooms, two atmospheres. On the right, the day of Thursday, August 26 was again loaded with announcements with a candidacy and a renunciation of the presidential election. Much awaited at the party Les Républicains (LR) and outside, Laurent Wauquiez’s decision concerning this major ballot was made public Thursday afternoon. The president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region thus let it be known that he was finally not showing up for the race. A few hours later, the former European Commissioner Michel Barnier on the contrary announced on the TF1 television news set his desire to wear the colors of his political family in 2022. If he has long said he is hostile to the principle of a primary, Michel Barnier becomes the fourth candidate after Valérie Pécresse, Philippe Juvin and Eric Ciotti, who had declared the same morning in front of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on BFM-TV.

Since he finished one of the biggest negotiations in the history of the European Union – on Brexit – Michel Barnier seemed to see a more French fate. Returned to France, he multiplied meetings and interventions in front of elected officials. Deputies, senators or candidates for various elections, especially regional ones, received it to discuss major themes. The former minister of Jacques Chirac has also, for this purpose, set up a working group: Patriots and Europeans.

“Determined” according to its teams, ” competent “ and capable of“Appease” and of ” to assemble “ According to his supporters, among whom are the deputy for Paris Brigitte Kuster or the mayor of Touquet-Paris-Plage, Daniel Fasquelle, Mr. Barnier risks encountering a glaring lack of enthusiasm on the part of his political family.

Wauquiez’s “spirit of responsibility” hailed

A situation that Laurent Wauquiez anticipated by finally renouncing to present himself. “Being a candidate for the presidential election is a decision that you take not because you simply want to, but because it is a moment when you feel in a position to rally your camp and unite the French. I consider that for me, this moment has not come ”, writes the former mayor of Puy-en-Velay.

Party of the LR leadership under pressure from his peers, who criticized him for the low score of the right in the European election in 2019, Laurent Wauquiez, however, began in recent weeks to return to the forefront of the political scene. He who had retired to his region and had been discreet for almost two years had thus resumed participating in events and other meetings organized by Les Républicains. Enough to imagine an intact presidential ambition.

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