Carrousel du Louvre, Saturday evening. At the time of giving the results of the vote of the militants called to decide on the creation of Renaissance, the room must be satisfied to discover percentages: 83% for the new direction, led by the MEP Stéphane Séjourné, 87% for the adoption of the new statutes of the party and 96% the charter of values. Stratospheric scores on paper, a real plebiscite. Except that that evening… no figures are given on the reality of the electorate, even less on the number of voters. As is customary in this kind of congress. With only one slate vying to lead the new movement, that was where the only suspense lay.
So, in the bays, some wonder about this lack of transparency, considered a secret jealously guarded by the Macronist staff. And for good reason… According to our information, the ballot organized at the end of last week did not gather the crowds: only 12,485 voting Walkers, for around 27,000 “certified” members called to the (electronic) ballot boxes. That is, less than 50% participation. And a Lilliputian mobilization with regard to the great party he is supposed to embody, the very one which the day after Emmanuel Macron’s first election in 2017 claimed up to 400,000 members!
“There was no stake, no suspense”
“It’s not heavy,” admits a party history. “I expected a lot more. I understand better why the management did not want to communicate on the figures. It’s easier to dress up a result with percentages… ”, engages a parliamentarian from the majority a little embittered. Rue du Rocher, at the party’s headquarters, however, we refuse to see any disavowal of the militant base, or any other form of disinterest: “There was only one list in competition for the leadership, so there was no There was no stake, no suspense. Result: it did not mobilize much, ”deciphers a frame. So we relativize. “It’s not too bad, in all honesty,” said another, who expected much worse. Everyone knows the difficulty of motivating the troops the day after a major victory such as the presidential election. What is more “in a context where the French are losing interest in traditional political apparatuses”, we insist.
Already, even before the proclamation of the result on Saturday, Stéphane Séjourné brushed aside the idea that Renaissance, built on the baptismal font of LREM, would be a colossus with feet of clay: “The subject is not knowing where is the organization I inherited, but what we do with the new party. The objective is to have an organized, serious party, which produces ideas, structures on the territories, works on future campaigns, ”he confided at the end of last week to our newspaper. His next project? “Launch a major membership campaign. Indeed, there is a need. “The first objective that we must set ourselves: it is to join and to make people join,” he also said on Tuesday, September 20, in a thank you email addressed to the activists.