“Everything is possible. We are not in the time of the municipal elections (but) The Republicans will be present in Paris”, indicated the boss of the right on France 5, on the same line as the head of the LR deputies Olivier Marleix who had previously assured that the right would have a candidate in 2026 in the capital.
On the set of C à vous (France 5), Eric Ciotti gave “confidences” about Rachida Dati’s entry into government and revealed that Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had called him twice last week , the first after his appointment to Matignon to tell him that he “would not carry out any poaching” at LR. The second call occurred during the appointment of the former Minister of Justice to the Ministry of Culture: “he told me ‘Rachida Dati is not LR, Rachida Dati, it’s a brand that ‘we bought'”.
“I’m still at LR, and I told him”
For his part, Olivier Marleix raised the possibility of sending a “bailiff” to the Minister of Culture to notify her of her exclusion from LR, believing that she should have the “elegance and intelligence” to take note of his exclusion without formalities.
“Rachida Dati de facto left the Republicans, joining what she herself called a party of traitors from the left and the right,” Olivier Marleix told the Association of Parliamentary Journalists (AJP) at the ‘National Assembly. Surprise guest of the new government, the new Minister of Culture, figure of Sarkozyism and the Parisian right, confirmed on Wednesday that she would be a candidate in the 2026 municipal elections in Paris.
And she was ironic about her exclusion from LR, announced by Eric Ciotti in the wake of his appointment. “I’m still in the LR, and I told him, I’m still waiting for my OQTF (obligation to leave French territory, editor’s note) from the LR,” she quipped Wednesday on RTL.
“In 2026, I think the real difficulty will be with the Macronists”
On Wednesday, several Parisian elected officials, LR and related, indicated to AFP that Rachida Dati was going to resign from the presidency of their group. “I will naturally remain among you, within our group,” she said in a message sent to the loop of these elected officials, and transmitted to AFP. She also intends to remain mayor of the 7th arrondissement.
“Political life is convictions, they are not personal careers,” tackled Olivier Marleix, once again criticizing the choice of Bruno Le Maire and Gérald Darmanin to have left their political family to join Emmanuel Macron.
“In 2026, I think that the real difficulty will be with the Macronists,” he predicted, judging that “Macronism does not exist in deep France”. In the shorter term, a score of around 18% in the European elections for Renaissance would mark “the premature end of macronism in our country”.
“It is because he is very worried about the polls” that Emmanuel Macron decided to reshuffle his government, according to Olivier Marleix, with the idea “of setting up an Attal-Bardella match with a view to the Europeans”, because “ the RN is his favorite opposition.”