2023-11-02 05:15:12
Lobbyist Thierry Coste, in Paris, March 22, 2022. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
She has no face, no party, but she could well have a list in the European elections: rurality, since that is what we are talking about, is organizing itself to weigh in at the polls on June 9 2024. With lobbyist Thierry Coste, 68, advisor to the National Hunters Federation, in charge. And, in discreet support, Emmanuel Macron, who would welcome this list likely to gain votes in the National Rally (RN). “The president is aware of everything, he trusts me”assures the lobbyist.
A former dairy cow breeder in Haute-Saône who now charges a lot for his advice, Thierry Coste made himself known to the general public in 2018 in the role of Nicolas Hulot’s “heartthrob”, which he precipitated the departure of the government. “Me, on my hunting board, I have game heads. He looks like a minister”smiles his friend Pierre Charon, hunter and former senator for Les Républicains (LR).
Since this fine manipulator made it known in the press that he could put together a list for the European elections, a certain concern has gripped the right-wing and far-right leaderships. Eric Ciotti (LR), Jordan Bardella (RN), Marion Maréchal (Reconquest!) contacted him. “They call me, they chase me! “, he savors.
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The Franc-Comtois strategy is clear: “He wants to repeat CPNT’s blow [Chasse, pêche, nature et traditions]by widening it », summarizes political analyst Jérôme Fourquet, passionate about rural France, who has known Thierry Coste for a long time. THE “CPNT shot”, these are the 6.77% of the votes and six seats obtained in the 1999 European elections. Then the 4.23% in the first round of the 2002 presidential election for Jean Saint-Josse, or 1.2 million votes. A « coup » without a future, but behind which we already find the essential Thierry Coste.
“A diversity of electoral behaviors”
Two decades later, still influential in the world of hunting (“I’ve been pulling the strings for thirty years”he summarizes), Thierry Coste would like to repeat the feat. “But my list will be a list of defense of rural values, not just hunting and traditions”he specifies, seated in a chic brasserie in the capital frequented by politicians, which he has made his HQ.
According to INSEE, 24% of the French population lives in the countryside, that is to say in municipalities with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants. “The rural world exists and it weighs, attests Jérôme Fourquet, author of The French Archipelago (Le Seuil, 2019). But the rural vote includes a diversity of electoral behaviors, with a right-wing tropism and an overvote for the RN in recent years. »
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