Receiving a Thrombinoscope Award on Thursday, February 10, Valérie Pécresse flopped. The Republican (LR) presidential candidate, elected “politician of the year 2021”, had nevertheless tried to make people laugh by recalling the scenario of one of his favorite films, Star Wars. Observing that the campaign was a ” Star wars “, She compared herself to “Return of the Jedi”. Because she wants “to raise new hope, as the end of the saga says”, by George Lucas. The joke fell flat.
In her HQ, she has posted on a wall of her office the poster of another film, Kill Bill : Actress Uma Thurman, in a fiery yellow jumpsuit, stands in a martial pose, sword in hand, bloodied.
Valérie Pécresse, who will hold her first major Parisian meeting on Sunday February 13 at the Zénith, is preparing her counter-attack, following a week horribilis, marked by a series of rallies of elected officials from LR to Emmanuel Macron.
A figure of the party and of budgetary rigor, the chairman of the finance committee at the National Assembly, the deputy of Oise Eric Woerth, slammed on Wednesday the door of LR of which he has been a member for forty years. Followed the next day by the mayor of Calais (Pas-de-Calais), Natacha Bouchart and, two days later, by Nicolas Sarkozy’s ex-secretary of state, Nora Berra (who had left LR in 2017). The starters do not take half measures, praising – like the latter – the “charisma”the « leadership », and the “political bravery” d’Emmanuel Macron.
“The more they hit me, the more they strengthen me”
The offensive, intended to weaken the LR candidate before her meeting, is notably orchestrated from the Elysée Palace, where a former party elected official, Thierry Solère, who has become political adviser to the Head of State, officiates. “And once more, you haven’t seen anything”, smiles the person concerned, who promises other rallies from the right. “It is always in the electoral sequences that political clarifications take place”, he continues.
At Valérie Pécresse’s HQ, we are indeed expecting new defections. “The more they hit me, the more they strengthen me”, she launched, mocking the maneuvers of “the man from the anti-Pécresse cabinet”, “our friend Thierry”. The entourage of the candidate denounces a “attempt to destabilize” from the macronists, a sign of their “febrility”.
“Individual poaching is never viewed positively by voters,” assures the mayor (LR) of La Baule (Loire-Atlantique), Franck Louvrier, recalling the“limited effect” that had, according to him, the rallying of the socialist Eric Besson to Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. “It’s like the fable of the crow and the fox, people see more cheese than the passage from one camp to another”, continues the former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy.
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