The former Minister of Productive Recovery announced this morning that “the time has come” for him to “retire from the presidential race”.
The “reassembledannounced will ultimately not take place. In a video posted Wednesday morning on social networks, Arnaud Montebourg said he was definitely throwing in the towel. As if to close a chapter, the Minister for Productive Recovery chose to speak from his native Nièvre – the same one that had seen him declare himself a candidate four months earlier. Facing the camera, the now ex-candidate thus estimated that “the time (had) come” to “withdraw from the presidential race“.
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As already predicted Le Figaro last week, Arnaud Montebourg therefore officially resigned. Without depriving himself of sending a bitter message to the left, as in a last political gesture. If he renounces, it is so because he has “failed to unite in a common program» his candidacy, but also because «any“of the suitors of his camp”is determined to overcome our disagreements“. “I drew the conclusion that my ideas had certainly become foreign to my own political family.“, declared the one who defends, beyond the industrial training of France, “an uncompromising vision of the Republic” and an “demanding integration policy“.
No rallying, no voting instructions
While Christiane Taubira recently invited herself into the race, Arnaud Montebourg therefore made the opposite choice: that of not adding “from the mess to the confusion of too many applications“. “In my soul and conscience, I do not wish to participate in the devaluation of the democracy that we need to build the future“, he added. Defining himself as “a free man, absolutely free“, who will not join any other candidate and will not give instructions to vote.
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It is however full of hope that the former socialist minister had announced his project “singular» last September. With an original slogan, Arnaud Montebourg was delighted, from the town of Clamecy, to wear “fighting“became”the center of gravity of the convictions of the French», whether it is about his vision of wages, the planet or territories.
But these four months of criss-crossing the country were not enough to make him sufficiently popular with the French, who for a long time, according to polling institutes, only 3% wanted to give him their ballot.
“These ideas are on the way”
This renunciation thus marks the end of a campaign sometimes also carried out in pain. In November, the candidate’s proposal to block money transfers to countries that do not repatriate foreigners had attracted the ire of the left. His telephone attempts to unite the candidates at the end of December had also been crowned with failure, and sometimes derided. As for the quest for sponsorship, it was still far from over.
Funding will also have remained one of its main hurdles, having no good polls under its belt to show banks as evidence of its solvency. The negotiations initiated for several days with the communist Fabien Roussel and the ex-keeper of the Seals Christiane Taubira could moreover have stumbled not only on the resumption of his themes, but also on the assumption of the debt of his campaign. A point questioned by relatives of the ex-candidate, for whom financial questions would not have been an obstacle. According to information from Figaro, some 100,000 euros must in any case still be reimbursed, out of the 200,000 invested by the candidate.
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From now on, Arnaud Montebourg therefore hopes to see his proposals survive him. According to him, “these ideas are on their way» and available to «all those who want to take it“. “I will ensure that they continue their career and will strive to defend them“, he said.