All that for that. After a political and legal battle that lasted for more than three months and which had placed the LR in a new crisis, Eric Ciotti has finally decided to leave the presidency of the Republicans by himself. The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes made the announcement on Sunday in The Figaro.
“My decision to leave LR will allow us to rebuild a large political family with clarity and independence,” believes the MP, who launched his own party, the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR), at the end of August. His decision puts an end to the ongoing legal proceedings. It comes three weeks before the hearing scheduled for October 14, where the courts were to rule on the exclusion by LR leaders of their president, after his decision to form an alliance with the RN. “I have won three times and I had no concerns about the hearing on October 14. But now, it is no longer relevant, since I will have left the LR presidency and the LR party by then,” argues the now ex-president of LR.
“He was very isolated, very alone in the end,” according to Daniel Fasquelle.
On the LR side who had not followed Eric Ciotti, that is to say the vast majority of the party and the entirety of the general staff, who had denounced his decision, there is no hiding their satisfaction at seeing this bad story, not to say this nightmare, in the eyes of some, come to an end.
“Eric Ciotti had already left the LR anyway, in fact. All that was missing was this announcement,” Daniel Fasquelle, treasurer of the Republicans, told publicsenat.fr. The mayor of Le Touquet-Paris-Plage recalled that “for the legislative elections, he had invited his candidates to choose a party other than the LR. And throughout the summer, he built another party and invited LR members to join it. For me, this is just the conclusion of a process that was largely underway. It’s not a surprise.” Daniel Fasquelle added that “he had no choice, because neither the party authorities, nor the executives, nor the headquarters staff had followed him. The secretary general (Annie Genevard, appointed Minister of Agriculture, editor’s note), nor I had followed him. He was very isolated, very alone in the end.”
“The plan failed”
“It seemed inevitable to me. He chose his timing, with the appointment of the government, to have his argument, it allows him to justify himself. But it’s always the same speech. It will at least avoid procedures, which are always harmful for everyone,” judges Dominique Estrosi Sassone, LR president of the economic affairs committee. The senator of Alpes-Maritimes, Eric Ciotti’s department, adds:
Beyond a nightmare, it remains a betrayal, a lie, an individual action, which is absolutely unacceptable.
Dominique Estrosi Sassone, LR senator for the Alpes-Maritimes.
LR senator Stéphane Piednoir welcomes “a clarification. It took him a while to understand and to play with the legal procedures. But the outcome was not in doubt for quite some time,” thinks the man who is at the head of the LR federation of Maine-et-Loire. He recalls that “the convening of the bureau (with the aim of excluding Eric Ciotti, editor’s note) is written into our statutes, from the moment it brings together a quarter of the members of the bureau,” which was the case. In the end, “he largely lost his bet,” believes Stéphane Piednoir, “it is a completely failed operation. The plan failed and he finds himself isolated in a group of 16 deputies when we have a bloc of 200 parliamentarians.”
“We are definitely turning the page”
His colleague Laurent Duplomb, LR senator for Haute-Loire, also welcomes “this clarification on his part. We cannot be out and continue to be inside”. “It’s very good, we are definitely turning the page”, appreciates the LR senator for Val-d’Oise, Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, “delighted that he has officially confirmed his departure from the LR”.
Not unhappy either to be rid of this legal procedure “which was poisoning our lives”, LR senator Max Brisson underlines that Eric Ciotti “was harming the interests of the party”, whether for public funding, with candidates stamped Ciotti “who were not labeled LR” or by “using the files to ask members by email to join his own party”. The LR senator of Pyrénées-Atlantiques adds:
There was an ambiguity from which we will emerge, even if he had lost the media battle, but also the political battle.
Max Brisson, LR senator for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
“Being Minister of the Interior was his greatest dream and it passed him by”
It is also difficult not to think that Eric Ciotti made the wrong political and strategic choice. If he had not crossed the Rubicon by forming an alliance with the RN, we can imagine that he would have become a minister in the Barnier government. “Maybe he must have a lot of regrets today,” suggests Daniel Fasquelle. “He must be a little bitter. He dreamed of being Minister of the Interior and I am delighted that it is Bruno Retailleau today, a man who has convictions and who does not change them,” points out Jacqueline Eustache Brinio. “Being Minister of the Interior was his strongest dream and it passed him by today. Before leaving LR with losses and fracas, he was bowing to Emmanuel Macron,” recalls Dominique Estrosi Sassone.
In reality, this should not change much in the life of the party. “Concretely, he had not been present for a while at the headquarters”, notes Stéphane Piednoir, who mocks “the circus, the theater of his real false start, following the dissolution”. “We do not have to recover the keys, we have never lost them. We have always been at home. No one has ever been banned from accessing the LR. I continued to go there every week, the staff too. The party functioned all summer”, explains Daniel Fasquelle, when “Eric Ciotti has not set foot there since June”.
“Beware of these perpetual name changes, which also lose voters and activists,” warns Daniel Fasquelle.
With the Ciotti page turning, “we have a new start to make,” hopes Stéphane Piednoir. A new election will have to be organized to elect a new president or presidentess to head the party. It remains to be seen whether Laurent Wauquiez, who preferred to stay out of the government and keep the presidency of the group in the Assembly, will launch. Holding the apparatus is always an advantage in the conquest of the Elysée. But it is not just a question of casting. “It will allow us to rebuild from top to bottom, from the cellar to the attic, a party of the republican right, with new statutes, the reaffirmation of a charter of values,” hopes Max Brisson, who wants to “establish a refoundation, the most superficial part of which will be the name.”
“This is the end of the Ciotti story. On the other hand, we have a party to rebuild, its ideas, its executives, its positioning,” confirms Daniel Fasquelle. While he has “no strong opinion” on a name change, the LR treasurer nevertheless warns: “Be careful also with these perpetual name changes, which also lose voters and activists. We must not make it a taboo, but it is not the alpha and omega. If we change the name but not the ideas, the men, the women, we will not have tackled the problem from the right end.”