2023-04-20 12:11:11
From the nightmarish campaign of Valérie Pécresse in 2022, which came in fifth position with 4.78% of the vote, we already knew a lot: the tensions within the staff of the Republicans (LR), the vagueness of the strategy politics, the lack of support from ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, and of course the colossal campaign debt that the candidate inherited – which forced her to call for the generosity of activists, having failed to reach the threshold of 5% necessary for reimbursement by the State of half of its expenses.
The campaign accounts of Mme Pécresse, analyzed by The world after their publication on Tuesday April 18 by the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP), shed light on a new aspect of the aborted race for the Elysée Palace of the President of the Ile-de-France region: a “clash” between the close guard of candidate LR and a service provider close to Bruno Retailleau to whom she had entrusted her communication.
Triumphantly appointed by LR activists at the December 2021 congress, persuaded to cross the 5% mark which only “small” candidates are worried about, Valérie Pécresse has spent accordingly: with her 13.5 million euros, she has led the most expensive campaign behind incumbent President Emmanuel Macron. Offering expensive Parisian premises (321,000 euros monthly, for 1,500 m2), huge telephone campaigns (2.6 million euros) and a bloated team (1.6 million euros in salaries), the candidate did not skimp on her digital communication either.
The 1is January 2022, it signed a 1.58 million euro contract with Qatane, a service provider responsible for managing “the global digital project” in the countryside. It is up to him to create the website and mobile applications, to set up a video studio, but also to design publications for social networks, videos, parody content, to organize monitoring and to activate influencers at the benefit of the candidate.
The “augmented communication” of someone close to Retailleau
“A golden opportunity” for the consulting firm Qatane, created fifteen days earlier, as recognized by its founder, Jean-Baptiste Doat. This young man in his forties is well known in conservative right-wing circles. Former head of the youth movement of Philippe de Villiers (2006-2008), Mr. Doat has based with his wife, in 2015, the non-contract Catholic school Jean-de-la-Fontaine in La-Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée), which offers traditional education and distributes good points and golden buttons.
At the controls of candidate François Fillon’s “response cell” for the 2017 presidential election, he had caught the eye of Patrick Stefanini, the campaign manager. Five years later, it was this same Mr. Stefanini who introduced him to Valérie Pécresse, whose campaign he now directs. And he too who co-signs, with the financial agent, the contract with Qatane.
Jean-Baptiste Doat likes media stunts: when he was in charge of social networks for the general council of Vendée, he broadcast, on his working timemessages on the Twitter account Mdame Michua false housewife with very Sarkozy accents who was trying to mobilize a right “uninhibited” before the elections. He was also the one who registered the dog Clovis at the LR congress in 2021, to show that the membership system [au parti] wasn’t very serious”as he admitted to Mediapart. Mr. Doat is above all one of the relatives of the president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau. He was his collaborator at the regional council of Pays de la Loire, then at the Senate, before leaving his post in November 2021 to found his cabinet of “augmented communication”Qatane.
The hopes raised by the first contract, as juicy as it was unexpected, signed with the team of Valérie Pécresse, will however quickly dissipate. After less than six weeks of collaboration, the contract is terminated on February 8. “The services provided by the Qatane company were not up to the level of the campaign’s requirements”will explain the campaign team to the CNCCFP, judging the achievements “unsuitable and of insufficient quality”.
“Multiple hierarchical layers”
Edouard Fillias, boss of Jin, one of Qatane’s subcontractors, today disputes this harsh judgment: “Collaboration proved difficult with the other people in the campaign. It went badly, there was no listening or points of agreement. » A strategic note obtained by The world unfolds a long list of grievances addressed by the service provider to the candidate’s entourage: among others, the “sensitivities”the “respect for prebends” which are done “to the detriment of the effectiveness of a campaign”THE “multiple hierarchical layers” and the “very personal arbitrations of inexperienced people in presidential campaigns”. This document, sent by Qatane to “direction pole” on January 29, 2022, denounces in short the stranglehold of the teams installed during the primary of the right to the detriment of the new entrants.
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Jean-Marc Zakhia, communications advisor to Valérie Pécresse, “thought they had to regain control of the site”says Jean-Baptiste Doat, who claims to have been “placed under the guardianship of Pierre Liscia”, a relative of the candidate LR, elected like her to the regional council of Ile-de-France. “So, we stopped the collaboration, on our initiative”he assures. Communication on social networks is taken over by Pierre Liscia, while the keys to the candidate’s websites are handed over to a subcontractor company, Copernic.co, also managed by a former member of the 2017 Fillon campaign. Qatane still pockets 482,000 euros for final settlement.
Contacted, Pierre Liscia did not respond. Patrick Stefanini declined to comment on this episode: “I don’t have to do with anything, I didn’t take care of all that”, assures the former campaign director of Valérie Pécresse, converted into lobbying. Carefully examined, all the communication expenses of the candidate were finally validated by the CNCCFP, which gave on December 14 its green light the reimbursement by the State of 785,423 euros to Valérie Pécresse, out of the 13.5 million euros swallowed up in her campaign.
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