HAS fourteen months earlier than the presidential election, the municipal elections of March 15 and 22 shall be a primary vital take a look at for individuals who dream of an alliance between The Republicans (LR) and the far-right events. Reconciliations are presently sporadic. But weak alerts are showing nearly in all places in France.
In Nice, an LR MEP, Christophe Gomart, confirmed his assist for Eric Ciotti, president of the Union of Rights for the Republic (UDR), a celebration allied to the National Rally (RN). In Colmar, a president of the LR federation, Alain Kott, helps the RN listing. In Bourg-en-Bresse, a head of the Reconquest listing! is adopted by native LR executives. In Paris, a deputy mayor of 17e arrondissement, Aurélie Assouline (LR), joined the marketing campaign of the candidate Reconquête! Sarah Knafo.
Even if LR leaders reacted shortly by suspending Mr. Kott, the cracks within the rampart may widen between the 2 rounds. Will there be listing mergers? Or concerted withdrawals from either side? For months, Bruno Retailleau, president of the get together, and Laurent Wauquiez, chief of the LR deputies, have already knowingly weakened the Republican barrier by choosing the technique of “Everything besides LFI [La France insoumise ] ». An implicit name to vote far proper in sure circumstances and a significant evolution of the Sarkozy “neither-nor”, which already constituted a primary breach within the Republican dike by advocating abstention within the occasion of a second spherical between the left and the RN.
With nearly the identical phrases, Jordan Bardella, president of the RN, additionally calls to vote for the correct if a Mélenchonist candidacy can win. Even if this situation will undoubtedly be very uncommon throughout municipal elections, it may create an vital and dangerous precedent because the nationwide deadlines strategy.
Marginalized by 9 years of macronism and by the electoral successes of the RN, pushed by conservative media much less and fewer immune to a union, the right-wing leaders have introduced down quite a few ideological safeguards. Candidate for the presidential election since Thursday February 12, Bruno Retailleau storms in opposition to the federal government of judges, explains that the rule of legislation isn’t “neither intangible nor sacred”, and advocates a constitutional revision to carry referendums on immigration.
In the National Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez let his deputies program a invoice on the self-defense of cops. By utilizing the identical phrases, they ready the bottom and the minds for a cultural victory for the acute proper, which nonetheless goals of marginalizing them after which making them disappear.
In this context, the formations of the UDR and Reconquête!, way more liberal from an financial perspective, act as an airlock between the 2 political households, with LR elected officers clearly extra prepared to hitch the Ciottist and Zemmourist lists. This phenomenon takes place in a fastidiously maintained confusion. Thus, Sarah Knafo, who refuses the label “extreme right”, is complacently described in lots of newspapers and on sure information channels as a basic right-wing lady.
His coaching is, nonetheless, on the service of a person, Eric Zemmour, convicted of “provoking racial hatred” and “racist insults” for feedback made in 2019 and 2023. This semantic battle, skillfully maintained, mustn’t masks the truth: a rapprochement would don’t have anything to do with a “union of rights” touted all through interviews by Jordan Bardella, however would relatively result in a dissolution of the ex-Gaullist proper into the acute proper.
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2026/02/14/la-droite-face-a-un-enjeu-existentiel_6666763_3232.html