It’s no secret: LR senators (Les Républicains) are in favor of the pension reform proposed by the government. So when a few slingers in the Assembly – Aurélien Pradié in the lead – threaten not to vote for the project, the senators stand up as one to denounce values that they believe are incompatible with the party. Without hesitation to denounce the risk of bursting.
In the National Assembly, Macronist Karl Olive baits the Republicans
The boss of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, was the first to promise the party’s apocalypse this Wednesday, February 8: “I think we can die of our contradictions”he prophesied in the morning of RTL. “For me, being on the right is not being a little less on the left than the left”, he tackled. A reference to the social right defended by Aurélien Pradié, to whom he reproached a supposed change of position since his candidacy for the presidency of the party. “Courage in politics is to hold a line of constancy. »
Forty minutes later, it is the turn of the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher to present himself at the microphone of the morning of France-Inter : “I tell Aurélien Pradié that he belongs to a political family which has defined a certain number of values”, he warns. And to conclude with a formula that sounds like a warning: “If he really feels part of our political family, he must make the decision to vote” pension reform.
Eric Ciotti, the big loser
Another cacique of the party to denounce the partition of the deputy of Lot: Jean-François Copé. Asked by ” the Parisian “, the mayor LR of Meaux and member of the strategic committee of the right-wing party says he does not understand the divisions in his party: “The pension reform really embodies the DNA of the right of government”. He also calls on the LR deputies to vote for the reform, at the risk of never being credible in the eyes of the French. “Some in our ranks today defend the ideas of the Socialist Party! How to become credible again after that? »he protests.
Eric Ciotti, new boss of LR: what changes for the right?
In this great game of division to be heard, the big loser is the new boss of the party, Eric Ciotti. Elected in December, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes has since negotiated the pension reform directly with Elisabeth Borne. If the reform is not passed in the Assembly, its credibility will be called into question and divisions with the senatorial right are likely to increase.
So following the lively exchanges between Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié on the Public Senate channel, Eric Ciotti tried to signal the end of the game. During the meeting of the LR group of the Senate on Tuesday, he denounced “all attitudes that are contrary to the unity and unity of our political family”. Remonstrances that were not enough to bring the party together: around twenty LR deputies voted against the introductory article of the reform on Tuesday evening. As a symbol of the war of nerves that wins the right.
