Valérie Pécresse goes to the front. The candidate Les Républicains for the presidential election, criticized for having mentioned the conspiracy theory of the “great replacement” on Sunday during her meeting in Paris, denounced on Tuesday a “controversy mounted” by her opponents. “Let’s be very clear, I am the real Republican bulwark to the theory of the great replacement. (…) I hate it, I fight it, this theory is a theory of hatred and fear”, defended the candidate on France 2 on Tuesday evening.
It is a “controversy mounted with an expression that I have been using for months to say that I am fighting once morest this supposed great replacement” of the European population by a non-European population, she added. “I do not legitimize it since I say that I do not want it,” insisted the candidate, who accused her rivals.
“Unhealthy game”
“Since I was nominated (candidate), there has been an unhealthy game between Emmanuel Macron and Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen to try to ensure that they meet face to face,” said Valérie Pécresse, who judges that “uncontrolled immigration and failed integration” can “break a nation apart”. “I want to wash this thing publicly: I alone have the solution” and “she is a Republican”, she said. And to add: “Without migratory quotas, how will we manage to regulate flows, to control uncontrolled immigration? »
Asked regarding Nicolas Sarkozy, who would have criticized her in remarks reported by Le Figaro, Valérie Pécresse said her “conviction that he (her) will support”. “I am a totally free woman, I follow my path, but Nicolas Sarkozy remains a very strong reference and I want him to support me, (…) everything separates him from Emmanuel Macron. »