by Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) – “Woman of doing” claimed, Valérie Pécresse readily recalls how she resisted the long conflict 15 years ago against her text on the autonomy of universities to illustrate her ability to reform in the face of adversity, an essential quality in her eyes if she is elected President of the French Republic.
90 days before the first round, on April 10, the president of the Ile-de-France region, winner of the Republicans primary, is considered by the polls as one of the potential second-round opponents of Emmanuel Macron, who said his “desire” to be a candidate without formalizing his choice. Opinion polls present her as the most dangerous candidate for the outgoing president in the event of a final duel.
If Valérie Pécresse succeeds in her bet, she will become the first woman in France to accede to the highest positions of the State.
In her office adorned with souvenirs, movie posters, photographs of her three children and emblematic figures of her career – Jacques Chirac, of whom she was the advisor, Simone Veil, who took her under his wing -, the former Minister of Higher Education and Budget says he wants to “restore order” in a country in debt, in “serious crisis of authority.”
“We must put the streets in order, order the accounts,” she said. “France is a very fractured country, very fragile, it is necessary to revalue work and for that to make reforms of the State, a reform of pensions.”
On her governance style, Valérie Pécresse claims to be “two thirds (Angela) Merkel, one third (Margaret) Thatcher”.
“I am a woman who agrees, who decides, who does. I am also a woman who holds. And the Thatcherian third is to say ‘I will not back down’,” she said. “I carried out this reform of university autonomy by permanently maintaining social dialogue despite very strong opposition. I then managed Ile-de-France in conjunction with the unions to develop it economically and socially” .
At the head since 2015 of the region which produces 30% of the national wealth, she was re-elected last year and demands rigorous management of accounts, the elimination of hundreds of jobs at the head office and the creation of posts in high schools .
At 54, the one her opponents once nicknamed “the blonde” thinks the time has come to elect a woman at the Elysee Palace.
“I am convinced that the French are ready. Moreover, the voters of the right have shown that they are ready when perhaps it is those who have the most reluctance to trust women in power,” said- she.
A PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL PATY IN HIS OFFICE
Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, trained at the National School of Administration, magistrate by profession, Valérie Pécresse entered politics under Jacques Chirac, whose parentage she has always claimed, before becoming a deputy and then minister.
Today deported to her right by a political landscape dominated by a push of nationalists, represented by candidates Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen whose first-round scores are close to hers in the polls, Valérie Pécresse puts questions of security and immigration at the top of its roadmap.
She says she wants to “eradicate the ghettos” in ten years, put an end to automatic land rights and “bring the Kärcher out of the cellar” against delinquents, in reference to an expression used by former President Nicolas Sarkozy who appointed her minister.
“I was the first to alert on this issue of urban separatism and confinement which leads to communitarianism, even to Islamist separatism”, she said about certain difficult neighborhoods, where she is going this Monday in the Paris region .
After having dominated French political life after the war, the conservative camp to which Valérie Pécresse belongs was, to say the least, destabilized by the arrival of Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, to the detriment of the traditional parties.
Since then, The Republicans have sought unity in a fractured family whose former vice-president Guillaume Peltier announced on Sunday that he was joining Eric Zemmour.
To the voters of the former journalist, who warns against what he considers an Islamist threat in France, Valérie Pécresse replies that she will govern as a “woman to do”, knowing that “there are a number of observations made by Eric Zemmour that I share and that I was the first to do. “
“We must be inflexible in respecting our values,” she said. “In the public sphere, the law takes precedence over faith. They are the same rights, the same duties for all.”
On a tablet near her office, Valérie Pécresse posed a photograph of Samuel Paty, a teacher beheaded in October 2020 by a teenager of Chechen origin who accused her of having shown caricatures of Muhammad to his students.
“This portrait of Samuel Paty will remain in my office, including when I will be President of the Republic. Because I never want to forget so as never to give in to barbarism, terrorism, obscurantism”, says- she.
(Elizabeth Pineau report, edited by Blandine Hénault)