They had gone to attack the group at the National Assembly, without success. Here they are today decided to try their luck for the presidency of the Les Républicains (LR) party. Within the right-wing formation, there no longer seem to be any limits to the ambitions of the young guard, who believes his time has come. Monday, September 12, Aurélien Pradié, MP for Lot, 36, officially announced his candidacy for the head of the party. It is in the columns of Figaro that the secretary general of LR has decided to address the 50,000 or so members, called to vote during the internal ballot, organized in December. He thus becomes the third national figure of the party to embark on the race after the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti, and the senator of Vendée, Bruno Retailleau, who managed to install a duel between them.
Far from appearing as a favorite, the troublemaker on the right, known for his trenchant positions and his uncompromising outings, still seems to believe in his chances. “I want to carry a new hope, he explains. Rebuild the popular right that we have lost. » Rather than confining himself to certain subjects, he wishes “that the right talks about everything, about every concern of the French”. Head of the gondola of a group of LR deputies – including the deputies Pierre-Henri Dumont (Pas-de-Calais), Julien Dive (Aisne) or even Raphaël Schellenberger (Haut-Rhin) –, Mr. Pradié and his supporters have all have the same credo: change.
“We need a revolution”
Elected for the most part in 2017, these thirty-year-old deputies have known nothing other than defeats, at the national level, in a party, where they joined younger. They who conquered their constituency in a difficult context, after the defeat of François Fillon in the presidential election, before being re-elected there five years later, believe that it is necessary “turn everything upside down” to reconstruct the line. “We need a revolution, positive of course, but a revolution”explains Julien Dive.
Starting with the subjects in which the party should be interested. Security and immigration issues – which Eric Ciotti has made his specialty – must certainly remain in LR’s DNA, according to them, but “they are not enough”, slice Julien Dive. For him, as for his comrades, the right can no longer be “only seen through this prism”.
Anxious to broaden the party’s discourse, Aurélien Pradié and his supporters intend to put forward proposals on the environment, work, consumption or even food. More focused on social issues than their elders, these elected officials, often from rural constituencies, believe that the right must now have as a common thread “emancipation”, ” dignity “ and the “Republican Promise” in the words of Mr. Pradié. In addition to changes in doctrine, there are also many within this small group who want to rename the party, in order to give it a second wind.
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