The suffering of France’s conservatives is leading into ever darker valleys. Marginalized in the National Assembly for years, almost at their own request, and having become faceless in terms of their program due to internal struggles, their own leader has now single-handedly torn down the firewall to right-wing populists and extremists.
Or tried to tear it down. The party reacted and sacked its leader. He refuses to accept the decision.
The whole process is, in a mature democracy, unheard of and even outrageous: Eric Ciotti, President of the Republicans until Wednesday, has, in view of the miserable election results of his party LR, single-handedly and in complete secrecy formed a new alliance with the leaders of the former Front, now Rassemblement National.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were certainly happy to agree, having been finally ennobled by Ciotti as capable of democracy and coalition. But a storm immediately broke out within the party.
Many of the party’s “tenors”, as political leaders are often called in France, accused their own party leader of “betraying” the shared values and customs within the conservative family. “Never,” says Senate President Gérard Larcher, will he give in to this pact. Even Ciotti’s previous favorite for a presidential candidacy, the not exactly moderate Laurent Wauquiez, opposed the coup from above.
What now? Eric Ciotti, a nasal southern Frenchman who for a while prided himself on being the Republicans’ “Mr. Security,” could not remain party leader. A split in the Republican Party seems inevitable.
Does Ciotti want to found a new movement? Does he want to switch sides immediately in order to finally take up his dream post as Interior Minister under a possible head of government, Jordan Bardella of the RN?
The first reactions suggest that there are only losers here. President Emmanuel Macron is one of them. He, who called for new elections so that “more clarity” could prevail in France, is only getting more confusion. He may have sown what is known in Germany as Weimar conditions.
This is supported by the fact that Ciotti cordoned off the party headquarters and did not let the party executive in to prevent unpopular decisions and his exclusion. The party leader barricaded himself in the party headquarters. Is it a coup? Or is it a bad joke?
In any case, everything suggests that the Conservatives’ ordeal has just turned into a ghost ride. And Eric Ciotti is at the wheel.
