LR candidate Valérie Pécresse signed the catastrophic score of 5% of votes in the first round of the presidential election. In addition to certain weaknesses in the discourse, it suffered from the useful vote, mockery and the inability to renew itself.
In the LR headquarters, at the chemical house (7th district), it is freezing: the eight degrees outside have pierced the walls, the floor, the hearts, the ceiling. Dozens of journalists, smiling, comment on the first estimates that reach them. It sneers, rolls its eyes, smokes outside before the arrival of the militants; the second round Macron – Le Pen has a smell of coming back to it. Five years later.
Many elected officials are missing: François-Xavier Bellamy, Éric Ciotti – “He is at TF1 tonight” -, Xavier Bertrand – “In Saint-Quentin” – and others who did not have time to move. Gérard Larcher, Christian Jacob, Michel Barnier, Philippe Juvin, back from Ukraine, Damien Abad (absent during the last meeting at Porte de Versailles), Julien Aubert, Aurélien Pradié, Valérie Boyer and the second knives Charles Consigny and Charles Prats , them, bothered to come. It is therefore in this mansion that is too big, too stuffy, too beautiful, too everything, that the end of the Republicans takes place.
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Because under these airs of small death, it is not Valérie Pécresse that we bury, but the party. Nobody flinches, the activists gather in groups of three, five for the most talkative; journalists outnumber the guests. We hear snatches of sentences: “I have no choice, I’m resigned” says a young woman to a friend, “in the second round, I can’t vote Macron, it’s just not possible” declares a guy at his friend, “I’m ashamed for France”, “can you imagine the state of the country in five years”, “we’re fed up” or even “if we end up less than five, it’s hell are exchanged half-wordly.
See as well : Macron in the lead, Le Pen qualified, the official results map
Maxence, Terrence and Eva, all three seventeen years old and LR activists for two years, have been trying to keep a semblance of composure. Terrence is the most expansive, the one who believes in it despite everything: “We are very happy to have supported this project from the Republican right. The next few years will be decisive and if Valérie is not elected, we will be in a state of immobility. “His friend Eva thinks that the outgoing president has “stolen and manipulated the election” while Maxence castigates Horizons, the new party of Edouard Philippe: “It is not a great success. The watchword is to stay behind LR and win our circos in the legislative elections. The three will vote blank in the second round.
A cathedral silence
Just before the result, some executives agree to play the game of questions, give a few answers in this surreal, even tragicomic evening. Julien Aubert is the most sought after, one of the few who deigns to answer questions. The deputy of Vaucluse, slicked back hair, impeccable suit, contagious bonhomie, indulges in confidences: “LR is in mortal danger […] We must choose a new path. There will be no voting instructions, everyone in the party does what he wants. On the other hand, if we are below 5%, we will have to change […] The error of the LRs is to have thought that having local elected officials gives a national base, when, for example, people voted for Valérie at the regional level but for Macron at the national level… ”He then continues , explaining that his candidate had a good campaign, but that the fact that there were “two rights” posed a problem.
On the absentees of weight, he explains that he “never comments on the absences” and, even if he says that Valérie Pécresse had a good campaign with a good program, he criticizes the fact that she “came out of his game”. He puts the blame on the “useful vote” – like many of the executives and activists interviewed -, explains that it is necessary “to change the political line”, and says that his party “has paid for a form of ideological non-renewal” coupled with a non-existent campaign. The deputy is angry, like his activists, with Éric Zemmour and his party “Reconquête! also for having “chosen the right as the main adversary”.
When the final results fall, the portraits of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are displayed on BFM, connected continuously since the beginning of the evening, a cathedral silence is heard. The candidate has just made 5%: fifth behind Mélenchon and Zemmour. Tears, small groans and horizontal nods appear in the audience. We don’t know who to blame, who to vilify, who to insult either. Finally comes Valérie Pécresse who thanks her supporters, her team, resents the “useful vote that played”, while “taking her full part in this defeat” and betting on “the fight for the legislative elections which is coming”. She quickly assumes, to some applause, to vote for Macron in the second round, while claiming not to “own the votes of [s]are voters”.
The candidate, once the speech is over, leaves, under the gaze of her team, moved, sad, dejected. The small crowd withdraws, the tears continue to flow. Then the silence resumes. How it had sounded as soon as the doors were crossed on this beautiful April day. The sun has set. Outside as inside, it is freezing.