Éric Zemmour hoped on Friday that his competitor David Lisnard (ex-LR) would “resist the pressure” and thus allow him to participate in a right-wing primary excluding Gabriel Attal with the prospect of presenting a single presidential candidate.
“I hope that Mr. Lisnard will resist (the) pressure from his friends from LR and that he will impose the presence of Reconquête and I will be delighted to be a candidate in this primary,” declared the candidate during the Made in France trade fair which is being held at Porte de Versailles in Paris.
The organization of a primary between Gabriel Attal (Renaissance), Édouard Philippe (Horizons) and Bruno Retailleau (LR) and David Lisnard (Nouvelle Énergie) has regained strength in recent days, with LR strongly pleading in this direction following Gabriel Attal. But the mayor of Le Havre has for the moment categorically refused to participate. “All these people find themselves among themselves, I am quite disappointed, (it’s) the reconstitution of LR and the reconstitution of the central bloc”, lamented Éric Zemmour, considering it “curious” that Gabriel Attal, according to him “a socialist activist” is participating in such a primary.
David Lisnard has long argued for a primary going as far as Reconquest.
“The first thing is health,” declared Teddy Riner from the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis. AFP cameras captured the first trip of the candidate, which the judoka had announced a little earlier on X, arguing that he wanted to “put health back at the heart of our priorities”.
According to his team, this trip to the hospital was initially supposed to remain confidential but the candidate ultimately decided to make it public. He will also make a campaign trip to the “Made in France” show on Saturday, his entourage announced to the press. The judoka will go to this show on Saturday at 2 p.m. which highlights French production and is held at Porte de Versailles in Paris.
The project before the application. The what before the who. The axiom sounds obvious. Exclusively programmatic to date, Bruno Le Maire's contribution nevertheless adds to the confusion. With Musset, the most literate of politicians knows that “a door must be open or closed”. However, less than five months before a presidential election, how can we pretend to distinguish the message from the messenger? How can we defend ideas without clearly saying that we want to promote them and that we believe we are best placed to do so?
The former Minister of the Economy dreams of a debate on his fifty proposals. It's legit. It would even be desirable. But how would they focus the public debate when those of all the other candidates already declared are already struggling to break the sound barrier? We could make a comparison with those of Édouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal, Bruno Retailleau or David Lisnard. We would find many similarities and some nuances or divergences (he alone on the right proposes to tax the rich or, as Marine Le Pen wants, to reduce France's financial contribution to Europe). But we will not find this radical difference, in the approach to the country's challenges, the view on society or the understanding of the psychology of the French, which would be able to change the nature of the campaign.
The Republican presidential candidate affirmed Friday that he had “no bank loan” to finance his campaign, “like most candidates” and placed the blame on Matignon who had promised a state guarantee.
“All the candidates are having difficulty,” declared the president of LR on France 2, evoking for his party, in the meantime, “a sober campaign”.
“The problem is that Matignon told us, a few months ago, that the State was going to provide a guarantee, and suddenly he withdrew,” he explained.
“When we were negotiating with the banks, the banks listened to Matignon’s little music, and they said to themselves “oh dear, we’re going to wait, since we’re going to have guarantees from the State”.”
Last July, the government began looking with French banks for a solution to provide loans to candidates, citing risks of foreign interference if presidential candidates turned to foreign establishments.
Guest of France Info, the former prime minister regretted the proliferation of presidential candidates. “No one has any dynamics,” she laments, while the candidates in her space are struggling. “I don’t believe in the primary as it is proposed,” she mocks, regretting a perimeter including the mayor of Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes), David Lisnard. And deplores that with the primary debate, the “substantive” is relegated to the background. The Renaissance MP from Calvados believes rather in a gathering of the “reformist left to the moderate right”, citing the names of Bernard Cazeneuve, Xavier Bertrand and François Baroin.
Former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne denounced on Friday “the overbidding” of presidential candidates from the center to the far right to eliminate civil servant positions.
“The competition for whoever will eliminate the most civil servant positions, which we regularly see in the countryside, is not the right way to go about things,” Ms. Borne lamented on franceinfo.
As part of a day organized by franceinfo around public services, several candidates from the center to the far right put forward their proposals to reduce the number of civil servants.
LR candidate Bruno Retailleau proposed not renewing 400,000 civil servant positions because “with artificial intelligence, we can save 300,000 positions”, he estimated, estimating that there is overadministration at the hospital for example.
Reconquest candidate Éric Zemmour wants to go even further with the elimination of 800,000 positions.
Édouard Philippe proposed Thursday that magistrates no longer have the right to unionize, a proposal similar to those defended by Bruno Retailleau (LR) or the National Rally, wishing to restrict this possibility. “We who love public services must be demanding of magistrates. And there is an obligation to which magistrates are bound, which is to be impartial,” underlined the presidential candidate from Horizons on franceinfo, during a day devoted by this media to public services.
“This is the reason why I consider that we must prohibit the possibility of unionizing in the judiciary”, as in the armies, “for reasons linked to command and obedience”, added the pretender at the Élysée. Édouard Philippe also suggests recruiting magistrates “otherwise” than through the National School of Magistracy, to “diversify careers and profiles”.
“Everything is negotiable, it has to be a few euros,” demands Les Républicains (LR) candidate Bruno Retailleau on France 2, regarding a right and center primary. The Vendéen is proposing the dates of January 31 and February 7, as Le Figaro revealed on Tuesday. And still pleads for an “open” competition, “with a certain number of commitments” and “a form of loyalty”. In the event of victory for his rival Renaissance, Gabriel Attal, he assures: “we do not have the same convictions, I will withdraw”. Before qualifying: “I will win it, he cannot win it”.
Teddy Riner, who declared himself a candidate in the presidential election this week, announced he was going to Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis today to “put health back at the heart of our priorities,” he underlines.
He will also make a campaign trip to the “Made in France” show on Saturday, his entourage announced to the press. The judoka will go to this show on Saturday at 2 p.m. which highlights French production and is held at Porte de Versailles in Paris.
The five-time Olympic champion created a sensation on Monday by announcing that he was launching the race for the Élysée. His decision to run dates back to after the 2024 Olympics in Paris, where he saw “an entire country coming together, proud, happy. Then divide a few weeks later,” he explained in a brief video. Teddy Riner, who claimed to be neither right nor left, said he refused to resign himself “to choosing between two possibilities, those of the extremes”.
Guest of Franceinfo, the former prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, reiterated his proposal for a “coalition of the committed”, ranging from “social democracy to the center-right”. And including candidates from Raphaël Glucksmann (Place publique) to Édouard Philippe. “As it is proposed, it would aim to recreate the UMP,” he mocked about a primary from the right and the center, demanded by several contenders.
The former Minister of the Interior, who also has ambitions for 2027, still assures about the nationalists and the rebels who dominate the polls: “I put an equal sign between the effect of excesses, but I do not put an equal sign between the activists”. “It is obvious that the president of this party has indulged in anti-Semitism,” he said about the anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Jordan Bardella. Before shooting an arrow at Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “when there are leaders within LFI who claim to become President of the Republic, and who conceptualize the consubstantiality of violence against the police, all that creates a climate in the country.”
Relocating a consumer clothing sector, developing the cultivation of linen and hemp, structuring reuse and recycling sectors: Jean-Luc Mélenchon unveils his “productive investment plan” for textiles on Friday, aiming for 10% of new clothing manufactured in France by 2032.
While only 3% of clothes purchased in France are made in France today, the La France insoumise presidential candidate, who visits the Made in France show during the day, wants to “recreate a real consumer clothing sector”, going “from culture to manufacturing, including transformation”.
The objective is to increase the share of clothing sold made in France to 10% by 2032, or an additional 80,000 tonnes per year, by mobilizing “3.45 billion euros over the five-year period”, according to this investment plan consulted by AFP.
This relocation will be based on the massive development of local ecological crops, and in particular “a rise in power” of flax and hemp, whose cultivation areas will increase by 40,000 hectares each, to reach 240,000 ha for flax, and 65,000 ha for hemp.
The plan also plans to relocate the industrial stages of processing, spinning and weaving.
Is the RN crossed by an excess of optimism, an unshakeable certainty, a hint of hubris? First there are the first round polls, where Marine Le Pen is measured at 35%, which would turn the heads of any camp. There are second round scenarios where the candidate is given the winner each time. There is also the violence of October 17 which is considered a turning point in the campaign. In Orléans, before the party, Marine Le Pen reflected out loud on the presidential election. She assures her, she is “campaigning as if” she was at “15%”. “It’s the French who decide who will be in the second round,” she procrastinates, in the manner of “nothing is certain”.
The nationalist candidate already has too much experience not to know that anything can happen. She hates the state of mind of victory already achieved. In a group meeting three weeks ago, she warned her deputies, as she regularly does in private: “Don’t rest on your laurels. Let’s not believe that the election is won,” she insisted, before calling on her parliamentarians to “continue the work on the ground” and “continue to convince”. Renaud Labaye, deputy director of the campaign, says nothing else when he repeats his slogan to anyone who will listen: “We are not here to have fun. »
Bruno Retailleau, Les Républicains presidential candidate, affirmed Thursday that the primary of the right and the center should take place even if Édouard Philippe continues to refuse to participate.
“I want a primary to take place,” reaffirmed the Vendée senator on franceinfo during a day devoted to the candidates’ proposals on public services.
Even without Édouard Philippe? “Yes,” he replied, saying he refused to give him “the right of life or death in an attempt at a tie-breaker so that we can achieve better unity.”
Bruno Retailleau wrote this week to his competitors Édouard Philippe (Horizons), Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) and David Lisnard (Nouvelle Énergie) to propose a primary on January 31 and February 7.
Behind Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, still in the lead and qualified for the second round, David Lisnard is credited with at least 10% of voting intentions, only one point behind Édouard Philippe and Raphaël Glucksmann, according to an Opinionway poll for Les Échos and Radio Classique published Thursday.
The mayor of Cannes and leader of the New Energy party makes a resounding entry into this electoral barometer: tested for the first time, it reaches 10% in the scenario where Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal would both be candidates, 11% if the mayor of Le Havre was the sole “candidate of the center” and 12% against the sole leader of Renaissance.
Édouard Philippe continues to lose points, at 11% in the event of a duel with Gabriel Attal or 12% without his young centrist rival. The latter is also losing ground, at 10% without competition from the boss of Horizons, but barely 4% in the event of a clash with him.
The candidacy of David Lisnard also changes the situation for the social democratic candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, who falls by three points in all scenarios, to 13% against Édouard Philippe, 12% against Gabriel Attal and 11% if both run.
