The LR presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse blasted this Saturday a president Emmanuel Macron “pyromaniac” and “disconnected from the deep aspirations” of the French, promising by contrast to be a “president conductor” if she reached the Elysee Palace . “Emmanuel Macron who claimed to want an exemplary Republic has become a counter example” which “fuels the rejection of all authority figures,” she said during a press briefing at her campaign headquarters.
“A pile of renouncements”
“I fight the extremes just as much, but it is the president in place that I want to debunk”, she added, surrounded by her ex-competitors in the primary Xavier Bertrand, Eric Ciotti and Michel Barnier, as well as the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher and leaders of LR Christian Jacob and Annie Genevard.
Denouncing the “solitary” and “talkative” presidency of the Head of State, of which she criticized an “accumulation of renouncements”, Valérie Pécresse assured him: “I will not be a solo president, but a president and head of orchestra”. “France is too fragile today for an arsonist president,” she said, promising that her presidency would be “one of solutions, convictions, respect, courage and duty”.
Le Pen and Pécresse neck and neck in the polls
Two new polls on Friday gave, in the same order, Emmanuel Macron widely leading the first round, with 25% (BVA for RTL and Orange) or 26% (Ipsos Sopra-Steria for franceinfo and The Parisian) ahead of a trio made up of Marine Le Pen (17%), Valérie Pécresse (16%) and Eric Zemmour (12%).
Asked about Eric Zemmour’s quest for sponsorship, Valérie Pécresse felt that “helping him is not my role and it is not the role of Republicans”. But “when a political figure represents a current of thought in public opinion, he must be able to stand for the presidential election,” she added.
Invoking Voltaire, she affirmed that “we must fight so that all those who do not think like us can say it”. “But we must fight them on the level of ideas and on the democratic level”, she added. As for the idea of anonymous sponsorship, “the question arises when a certain number of mayors find themselves not daring to sponsor a candidate”, which is “problematic for democracy”, she said.