Presidential: to the right of Emmanuel Macron, the battle to qualify for the final

VSJanuary 25 sounds like a sad anniversary for Les Républicains. Five years ago, their candidate François Fillon was hit by a first missile from the “Chained Duck”. The palmipede indeed revealed that the former Prime Minister had, to the tune of 600,000 euros, paid his wife Penelope as a parliamentary assistant for a job considered fictitious, which the justice confirmed in the first instance, pending the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which will be delivered on May 9.

VSJanuary 25 sounds like a sad anniversary for Les Républicains. Five years ago, their candidate François Fillon was hit by a first missile from the “Chained Duck”. The palmipede indeed revealed that the former Prime Minister had, to the tune of 600,000 euros, paid his wife Penelope as a parliamentary assistant for a job considered fictitious, which the justice confirmed in the first instance, pending the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which will be delivered on May 9.

So hit and sunk on the evening of the first round. An earthquake for the Republican right and a challenge for Valérie Pécresse who must imperatively participate in the final of April 24 and, of course, try to win it. Judging by current polls, this is anything but certain. While she unsurprisingly benefited from a favorable breeze in the days following her investiture against Éric Ciotti on December 4, Valérie Pécresse lost her lead and today remains neck and neck with Marine Le Pen, in front of Éric Zemmour who has not given up on styling the two candidates on the wire.

In the second round, however, it is the president of Île-de-France who would prove to be the most dangerous for Emmanuel Macron, whose candidacy is no longer in doubt and that all the surveys place at the head of the first round. The competition should therefore oppose competitors ranging from the center right to the extreme right, the left not seeming able to level the playing field, even if the match is not yet folded, far from it.

Go well to the right

The candidate LR shows in any case that she does not want to repeat the error of Alain Juppé whom she supported in the 2016 primary, that is to say to place the second round before the first. Even if she has just obtained the support of the Centrists and the UDI, she claims loud and clear that she belongs to the right to bring together an electorate that can be tempted, by Emmanuel Macron on one side, by Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour on the other.

A right firmly planted on its fundamentals: tax relief for households and businesses, the reduction in the number of civil servants, economic liberalism, and, in the front line, security and immigration. It is moreover on these last two themes that she is considered the most convincing by an Elabe poll, certainly behind Marine Le Pen but ahead of the outgoing president, not very well rated, whom she pounded on the subject with the same sense of nuance as his “Mister Authority”, Éric Ciotti.

This same Elabe poll, if it gratifies her with the positive virtues of courage and dynamism, also reveals that she lacks presidential stature and closeness to the French. Rather handicapping when one aspires to the supreme magistracy. Only 14% of French people questioned give him a chance to settle at the Élysée. As much as for Marine Le Pen, her main rival, far behind Emmanuel Macron (48%). And the debate on the vaccine pass in Parliament illustrated the difficulty of Valérie Pécresse in getting her party to speak with one voice. Also annoying when you want to embody order and discipline.

Marine Le Pen more hesitant

Christian Jacob, the president of LR, and his staff are especially embarrassed by the Zemmour case. By removing votes from Marine Le Pen, her presence in the race can help Valérie Pécresse to reach the second round. But how to give his sponsorship to such an extremist candidate without giving the impression of a little complicit boost. “Sponsoring is not supporting” thus repeated the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, without however going so far as to set an example by granting his signature to the former columnist of CNews, who denounces the abolition in 2016 of the anonymity of sponsorships.

In addition to having castigated Guillaume Peltier (not simultaneously of course), the candidate LR and the founder of Reconquest have another point in common. That of making a real first-round campaign. To weld their camp before, perhaps, to gather beyond. And Valérie Pécresse has more pressure on her shoulders than the electoral neophyte who risks nothing, if not spite, if he is eliminated on April 10.

Marine Le Pen seems more hesitant. If it “presidentializes” too much (refocusing would be exaggerated), it loses part of its popular electorate who will go to see Zemmour. If she becomes too radicalized, she engages in a duel of extremism with Eric Zemmour, of which nothing says that she will emerge as the winner, in particular against the candidate LR. For the moment, the polls validate this strategy. But the lead is too short to reassure the National Rally.