A free fall. Since the presidential election of 2022, the traditional right-wing party has been in a very bad state. On April 10, 2022, the 4.78% of votes obtained by candidate Valérie Pécresse sounded like a crushing blow for Les Républicains.
Since that date, the debacles are linked and the poor health of the political family is bogged down. Despite their low score in the legislative elections with 62 deputies sitting in the National Assembly, the party still had the potential to be a pivot in the Chamber, capable of completing, or not, the presidential majority.
However, the hurricane of pension reform revealed significant friction within the party itself. On the one hand Aurélien Pradié refusing that “the right gradually becomes the conciliatory crutch of macronie”, as he declared in a press release in February. On the other, Eric Ciotti, president of the Republicans, in favor of voting for the controversial text and refusing to vote for the cross-partisan censure motion filed by the LIOT group following the use of 49.3.
A real split has thus taken place between these two personalities and their followers. Result: the right-wing party sees its adherents flee by the thousands. Today, it has 980 registered in the Yvelines, against 4,000 at the end of 2022, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, 693 today against 3,000 a short time ago. In one year, the party with 40,000 members has lost nearly 10,000, according to figures from Capital.
However, at the head of the Republicans, there is no question of being defeated. To assert himself against the government of Elisabeth Borne, President Eric Ciottia announced, this Sunday, May 14, the creation of a “counter-government”.
“After the stormy period of pensions, objectively complicated for us and which delayed the reorganization of the party, it is a question of overcoming this and moving forward on ideas”, declared Eric Ciotti in the columns of the Journal du Dimanche.
For this, the President of the Republicans has decided to follow the example of a practice from the United Kingdom: the shadow cabinet. It is a question of creating an alternative “counter-government” to Emmanuel Macron to defend the ideas of the party. Concretely, the party will now have a team of 32 “national secretaries”, acting as shadow ministers. “I hope that the programmatic work will be organized around the person who will have been in charge of the theme” he explained to our colleagues.
Who will this Shadow Cabinet consist of?
This team led by the general secretary of the Republicans Annie Genevard will be composed of several important personalities of the party, even if some heads such as the former second Aurélien Pradié are not included: