Is a primary needed to nominate a single candidate from the right and the center? While the many contenders are far behind Marine Le Pen in the polls, Gabriel Attal has put the idea back on the table. “It is time to all be responsible and organize the rally to which millions of French people aspire through a major primary,” declared the former Prime Minister on Wednesday evening on TF1. And this to “prevent a second round from which our country would not recover between La France insoumise and the National Rally”, according to the national secretary of the Renaissance party. If other figures from the right and the center also plead for a vote with a view to a single candidacy, the outstretched hand of Gabriel Attal does not seem to meet with success with Edouard Philippe and Bruno Retailleau, his main rivals.
This "democratic primary" would be open to all candidates who "share a certain number of values", including "the defense of the values of the Republic and in particular authority, secularism, the fight against discrimination, Europe and European construction, the competitiveness of our economy, social and ecological progress" and who have "a clear and clear refusal of any alliance with the extreme left or with the extreme right", detailed Gabriel Attal. This vote could therefore go from the social democrat Raphaël Glucksmann to the right-wing liberal David Lisnard, according to him. A framework that matches that of the “charter of values” drawn up by the president of the Normandy region Hervé Morin. Calendar-wise, the thirty-year-old has left himself until the end of January to convince his competitors.
“His candidacy is unraveling so he’s playing his best”
As for Edouard Philippe, slightly ahead of voting intentions within the central bloc, but left behind by Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the reception is more than chilly. "It is not this 'at the same time' as confusing as it is hazardous which will make it possible to avoid" a duel between the RN and LFI in the second round, estimated Laurent Marcangeli, president of the Horizons group in the Assembly, on X. The initiative is not considered "credible" by the entourage of the mayor of Le Havre. “After four months of campaigning, Gabriel Attal's candidacy is losing ground [in the polls], he is going below the waterline, so he is playing his best,” we slip.
“I didn’t really understand what Gabriel Attal was proposing,” dodged Maud Bregeon, government spokesperson and Minister for Energy, on BFMTV. “Edouard Philippe is today, by far, the best placed to bring this together” of the right and the center, she added.
“We are not frightened by the primary or by any election whatsoever, but in the current context, a primary would only have disadvantages.”
Maël de Calan, spokesperson for Edouard Philippe's campaign
And the president of the departmental council of Finistère elaborates: “It would press on our divisions instead of helping us to come together tomorrow with our partners, while this is the sine qua non condition for access to the second round,” continues the president of the department of Finistère. “It would be suicide for our political family,” he concludes.
“The primaries are factories for losers”
Enthusiasm is not there either in Bruno Retailleau's camp. The president of the Republicans is however in favor of a primary. “But it can only have meaning if, for example, Edouard Philippe participates in it,” said the right-wing candidate at the microphone of RCF Notre-Dame. “If there was a primary tomorrow, I am convinced that I would beat him,” he added, even though he appears to be behind in the polls. Wednesday evening, his entourage judged to franceinfo "fanciful and ridiculous" Gabriel Attal's proposal to "imagine [Bruno] Retailleau and [Raphaël] Glucksmann participating in the same primary".
Reluctance also on the side of the MoDem, where we would prefer that all the candidates, excluding the extreme left and extreme right, first agree on a common program. The president of the centrist party, François Bayrou, nevertheless pleaded for a primary on several occasions this summer. But "the primaries are factories of resentment and losers", estimates a centrist source, pleading instead for the development of a "national unity program", made of "concrete measures for the daily lives of the French", without partisan consideration.
One of the few supporters in this primary is the mayor of Cannes David Lisnard. The man who founded his party, Nouvelle Energie, has been advocating for months for the organization of a very broad primary ranging from the center-right to Reconquête, Eric Zemmour's party. “The primary allows us to avoid this situation of dispersion and to resolve dissensions,” said the president of the Association of Mayors of France in mid-October to franceinfo. “We can do it late, in December or until the end of January,” he added, specifying: “I will continue to advocate for a primary but not an alliance, that is to say that I will respect the result of the election, but I will not campaign for someone whose ideas I do not support.”
“I don’t want to campaign for Edouard Philippe.”
David Lisnard, presidential candidate
Despite these first returns, the Attal camp persists and signs. “Everyone must take their responsibilities, we cannot pretend to fight against the extremes and refuse a large gathering on principle,” defends MP Prisca Thévenot. “The scope of this primary should not focus on names, but on common values and common red lines, and we have them,” she adds to franceinfo. There are a little less than six months left for the right and the center to try to come together before the first round of the presidential election, on April 18, 2027.
