A supporter of a dialogue with Emmanuel Macron, the president of the Grand Est region was expected to leave Les Républicains after Eric Ciotti’s victory as party president on December 11. But finally, the leader of the regional executive will leave the regional presidency on Tuesday, according to our information. He will even announce that he is leaving public life more generally to engage in the private domain.
Jean Rottner will entrust the interim of his presidency to his first vice-president Franck Leroy, also mayor of Épernay (Marne). This elected official joined Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe, in January 2022.
Complicated relations with LR
“He is fed up with politics, he would have liked to be a minister”, confides an authorized source. A dream that was made complicated by his choice to support Valérie Pécresse in the presidential election. “The Élysée was very angry with him”, continues this same source. But relations were also complicated with LR, whose next explosion he predicted in early November in L’Opinion. A week ago, Jean Rottner said he wanted to “discuss and exchange” with his regional majority before making a decision.
During the last regional elections, he had been suspected, notably by MEP Nadine Morano, of wanting to negotiate an agreement with the Renaissance list led by Brigitte Klinkert. Under pressure, he had promised not to do so. But relations had remained fresh with his political family, as evidenced by a scene which took place on November 4 in Colombey-les-deux-Eglises (Haute-Marne).
After a lunch with the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, and the three candidates for the presidency of LR, Éric Ciotti, Aurélien Pradié and Bruno Retailleau, he had not been invited to the wreath laying in the afternoon at the tomb. of General De Gaulle while the village is in the Grand Est region of which he was the president. One more vexation, probably too much, for this former emergency doctor.