Nicolas Sarkozy’s former minister “will continue to support the group and lead its debates with a view to her candidacy to take over Paris town hall in 2026”, indicated elected official Aurélien Véron. She also intends to remain mayor of the 7th arrondissement, as she said on Tuesday during her greetings to residents.
As for the main opposition group to the PS mayor Anne Hidalgo, “I will naturally remain among you, within our group”, she said in a message sent on the loop of elected LR and related officials, and transmitted to the AFP. “To succeed in the alternation, we will have to go beyond, bring together all the vital forces of the capital,” she writes, while President Emmanuel Macron rejected Tuesday evening the idea of a “deal” made with her for 2026.
A resignation to avoid any division
“The reform of the voting method announced (…) also offers us new perspectives,” adds Rachida Dati after the announcement by the Head of State of a reform of the law organizing the election of mayors in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, so that they are chosen by direct universal suffrage.
Her resignation from the presidency of the group is explained by the “concern to devote herself fully to her mission as Minister of Culture and to avoid any division within the group which she was able to consolidate in three years”, indicates Aurélien Véron .
“We want a unique application”
“If some” of the capital’s right-wing elected officials “may have been disturbed by her entry into government, she responds by resigning from the presidency of the group,” added Jean-Pierre Lecoq, the LR mayor of the 6th arrondissement who had given him his support since his appointment on Thursday evening, despite his exclusion from the LR party.
To replace her at the head of the group, “we want a single candidacy”, the president of the Parisian LR federation Agnès Evren told AFP, saying she wanted to “maintain the unity of the group”.