The right sloughs off this Monday on the racist and conspiratorial concept of “great replacement”, long confined to the margins of the most radical far right, but pronounced by the candidate LR during her first big meeting, Sunday, at the Zenith of Paris.
The return of the “uninhibited right”, worse ? The day after Valérie Pécresse’s first big meeting, supposed to relaunch her in a breathless campaign, the Republicans’ feathered hats provide after-sales service for the performance of their candidate. In her speech, Valérie Pécresse notably took up a racist and conspiratorial concept relayed by Eric Zemmour: “There is no fatality, neither in the big replacement nor in the big downgrading.” A formula used, defended Pécresse, to better refute the thesis of the former journalist. “It means that I do not resign myself, precisely, to the theories of Eric Zemmour and the extreme right, because I know that another way is possible “she argued on RTL, this Monday.
It remains that to read the reactions of the tenors the Republicans, all do not seem to be on the same line as to the use of this concept forged by the writer and ideologue of the far right, Renaud Camus. Like every Monday, the close guard of the candidate for the Elysée met at campaign headquarters in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. On the menu of the day: the form of the meeting (rather missed, observers agree) and the substance (including certain passages of the speech that made people jump to the right). “We must clarify, say that the great replacement is not us”, thus launched Xavier Bertrand during this meeting, according to comments reported by participants to a journalist from France Télévisions.
“I am not afraid of words”
Same rant, according to this same source, at Jean-François Copé: “You have to mark the barrier with the extremes”, for his part, reprimanded the former boss of the UMP, yet a supporter, ten years ago, of the said line “uninhibited” within his party. In the entourage of the candidate claiming to be Jacques Chirac, who has always opposed a “dike” between the republican right and the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, this semantic adventure on the ground of the far right poses a problem.
Around the president of Ile-de-France, some nevertheless assume the expression used and the thesis it underlies. “I am not afraid of words, formulas”, supported his “authority” adviser, Eric Ciotti, on BFM TV on Monday. And the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes to embark on a risky explanation around a “modification of the French population”before concluding : “There are ukases, words that cannot be pronounced. I look at things.”
The boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, assumes that he has no “taboo”. “[Valérie Pécresse] can pronounce the words she chooses. And she pronounced it in another sense., he tried this Monday, on Public Senate. Understand: the candidate on the right uses the same words as Eric Zemmour to better counter him. The fact remains that for the senator from Vendée, ex-supporter of François Fillon in 2017, “there is a problem [concernant l’immigration] in France”. “We must regain control of migratory flows. It’s an emergency, that’s what the French are asking for.”, he added. Ceiling in the polls and elbowing with the ex-columnist of CNews and Marine Le Pen to win a place in the second round, Valérie Pécresse seeks to address both the fringe of her electorate tempted to vote Emmanuel Macron and to that sensitive to the sirens of the extreme right. A perilous exercise. At the risk of getting lost?