Europeans: the centrists of the UDI validate the alliance with the Macron camp

The national council of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) approved on Saturday its joining the list led by Valérie Hayer (Renaissance) in the European elections, even if this rapprochement with the Macronist camp gave rise to some reluctance. By a large majority, the UDI’s internal parliament adopted the motion proposed by the party’s leadership, deeming it “indispensable to get closer to political groups for which the European ideal remains a compass”.

“We are going to move on to the active phase”

Formula which gives a blank check to the president of the centrist party, Hervé Marseille, to conclude the negotiation initiated informally with the presidential majority (Renaissance, MoDem, Horizons, Radical Party). “We are going to move on to the active phase,” confirmed Hervé Marseille, who “will have conversations” from Sunday in Blois, where he will participate in the MoDem congress. However, the strategy was not unanimous. Around fifteen participants voted against, as many abstained. Like this delegate from Martinique who did not feel “capable of telling (his) members that we are going with Macron”. Another expressed his “refusal to become extras in a play written by others.”

But the centrist party had little other choice. After the failure of the autonomous list in 2019 (2.5%, no elected representative), “we saw the limit of the possible” recalled Hervé Marseille, highlighting the “drift to the right” of the Republicans to better justify the alliance “with those who are closest to us”. “In Europe, there is not a sheet of cigarette paper that can distinguish us from the presidential majority,” defended “without qualms” the mayor of Amiens Brigitte Fouré, while the senator from north Olivier Henno maintained that this rally “serves the influence of the UDI”, which had the “duty to participate in the gathering of Europeans”.