For Valérie Pécresse’s last meeting, on Sunday March 3 at Porte de Versailles before the vote in the first round, many activists made the trip, sometimes from afar. If all say they are confident about the victory of their candidate, they criticize the volte-face or rather the lack of support from Nicolas Sarkozy.
A long queue is emerging in front of the door of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center. Activists, mostly fifty years and over, white “Valérie Pécresse” t-shirts, flag in one hand, wait for the guards to open the door for them.
1:30 p.m. The militants disperse and run to get to the front row. A DJ does the weighing: electronic music from the 2000s that accompanies red-white-blue strobes; a feeling of a provincial nightclub. Large televisions display “The courage to do”, umpteenth slogan of candidate LR.
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But if the room is hot, that the militants are ready and that the elected officials arrive at regular intervals, one person is missing: Nicolas Sarkozy. One of the founding fathers of the Republicans, President of the Republic in 2007 and godfather of the Republican right did not bother to make the trip, unlike François Hollande who publicly said he supported PS candidate Anne Hidalgo. “Sarko” didn’t take the time to show his support for Valérie Pécresse either, for whole months walled in deafening silence…and that says a lot. During the speech of the ecologist Yann Wherling, whistles are heard when the name of Nicolas Sarkozy is pronounced.
At the applause meter, it is François Fillon who wins the timpani
A little later, Eric Ciotti, listing the great figures of the right, from Chirac to Séguin, quotes Sarkozy and manages to trigger rapid applause. In the applause, it is undoubtedly the name of François Fillon who wins the timpani. And among the speakers who marched before the candidate, Laurent Wauquiez and François Baroin (on video) reaped the most enthusiasm. As for Valérie Pécresse, she has largely made up for it after her failed Zenith meeting: more combative, and more comfortable without a teleprompter, the candidate has succeeded in bringing the ideas of the Republican right up to date and has galvanized her troops. Maybe a little too late?
In the room, the story is the same for many activists: “Sarko is a traitor. “Marie-Françoise, from Paris, the seventies, after having explained to vote for the program of Valérie Pécresse more than the person, curries Nicolas Sarkozy: “I do not want to hear any more about it. She pauses for a while, then returns to the charge: “It’s a betrayal, it’s still him who created the party, no, no, he’s no longer our president. I’m disgusted. »
Ditto on the side of Michel, in his sixties and who made the trip to Burgundy. If he puts the fault on the entourage of the candidate more than on the candidate herself for this difficult campaign, the one who voted for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, 2012, then François Fillon in 2017 does not budge: the ‘ “Sarko’s absence is not good. It’s never good stuff like that. Yes, I can say it’s a betrayal. »
Guilhem Carayon, president of Young with Pécresse, tries to save the furniture: “She made a local campaign, and nothing is written in advance. She is going to give a very big speech today. “The polls, he doesn’t care, “they gave Valérie the winner a few months ago. I think she will win, it will be played in a week and it will go to very few votes. “On Nicolas Sarkozy, he kicks in touch, in case:” Nicolas Sarkozy is a free man, he still has a week to decide. We do not look to the right or to the left. »
Then come two young people, in their early thirties, François and Jean, who play the game of questions “because it’s Paris Match”. François voted for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, then Mélenchon in 2017: “It was an angry vote,” he says. Jean, from Brest, who came for the occasion, voted “Sarko then Fillon and white in the second round in 2017” and assures that he does not “ir[a] not at Zemmour”. François and Jean, despite their presence at Emmanuel Macron’s meeting the day before “to see a little what he was going to say” came back a tad disappointed: “We want a France other than that of Macron”. They do not give voting instructions for a possible Macron-Le Pen second round: “In the second round, let the voters manage, we are tired of being told what to do; if they want to vote for Le Pen, let them go! They will see in five years! “. And Sarkozy in all this? Jean smiles, a little annoyed; François is more talkative: “In politics, all shots are allowed and Sarko made a choice a very long time ago. »
Matthieu, Augustin, agree with their colleagues who came today: for the first, “Nicolas Sarkozy is a shame”; for the second: “I expected it, but I remain disgusted. “Not sure that the former president can make yet another comeback, as he had tried in 2017 during the right-wing primaries; the same primaries that had seen the activists eliminate him in the first round.