Right-Wing Bulwark Against the Far-Right
Time for a Christmas break as Valérie Pecresse and Xavier Bertrand break ranks and attack potential alliance with the far-right
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This week
🎄It’s time for a Christmas Break
🙅♀️Pecresse and Bertrand move against far-right alliance
🎄Time for a Christmas Break
Right, ladies, gentlemen, my dear readers: It’s time for a Christmas break.
We’ve covered a lot of stories this year, covered a lot of political developments, and have seen European leaders beginning to (finally) start taking the security of our continent a lot more seriously than they had been.
We’ve seen Emmanuel Macron take a leading role, despite weakness at home, in these discussions, and at the same time, we’ve seen the French political class putting on their gloves and throwing down over the future budget of our country, all while the extremists point and laugh as they see their polling numbers rise by sheer virtue of being novel.
And so, after all of this time, after seeing Prime Ministers crash and burn, and on one occasion being reborn, it’s time to take a few weeks to rest and relax a little bit.
I may still write one or two things, and I have one or two articles in stock, and one coming in regarding the process of the French budget, but for now, the plan is to rest so I can come back refreshed next year, ready to tackle the 2026 municipal elections and the beginning of the 2027 Presidential elections.
And as always, thank you for your support, particularly to all of you, dear, lovely readers, who continue to fund this project of ours through your paid subscriptions.
I couldn’t do it without you.
🙅♀️Pecresse and Bertrand move against far-right alliance
So, kicking off the week, former Les Républicains Presidential candidate and President of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, has come out swinging against the idea of an alliance with the far-right Rassemblement National.
As we saw in last week’s Dispatch, Les Républicains are currently dancing around the idea of a full primary with the far-right, with proposals of an alliance from the centre-right (Darmanin, Renaissance) all the way to the furthest of the far-right (Knafo/Zemmour, Reconquete).
But not everybody agrees with this idea.
Xavier Bertrand was interviewed last Sunday on ‘Questions Politiques’ on France Télévisions, and was questioned about convicted Criminal Nicolas Sarkozy, stating that he would not participate in a Republican front against Marine Le Pen.
Many of you will remember that Xavier Bertrand was also one of the loudest voices against Eric Ciotti’s gambit to create a Union of the Right, which led to Ciotti being ejected from the party twice, and Bertrand’s reaction was no different here:
”Today, extremists are seeking to divide French society, which is already far too fractured... That is why I will continue to fight against Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Mr Bardella.
I prefer Nicolas Sarkozy’s political positions from 2007... At the time, the UMP, Jacques Chirac’s movement [now the LR], had a policy of no collusion with extremists. I think consistency is important in politics. And I remain exactly on the same line... [I have] more ambition for [my political family] than to see it running behind or ahead of the National Rally.”
Valérie Pecresse, from her side, came out with an op-ed in La Tribune Dimanche yesterday to state that “the right is not for sale”, and that “after a decade of sailing by sight, France needs a course and a compass, not a weather vane that would lead it to ruin.”
Throughout the op-ed, she tackles two parties that she accuses of “dreaming of sharing the monopoly of the second round”: La France Insoumise and the Rassemblement National.
Starting with La France Insoumise, Pécresse continues the long-standing critiques that have been levied against LFI by everyone from the centre-left to the right: antisemitism, disruptive behaviour, and institutional sapping:
“LFI promises permanent revolution and budgetary chaos. Its leaders ride the wave of anti-Semitism and compromise themselves with political Islamism. Its communitarianism will finish fracturing the Republic by multiplying differentiated rights and identity-based demands. Its economic programme is simple: hunting down the ‘rich’, institutionalising jealousy, and unlimited public spending. LFI stands for a divided and ruined France.”
For the far-right, she makes similar arguments, but is a little less general and more targeted, highlighting how the RN cannot be worked with due to their ideological and behavioural instability, as well as their “fascination” with
“The RN, meanwhile, is dressing itself up as a saviour. But behind this façade, what do we find? An economic programme modelled on that of the far left, consisting of rampant taxation and fiscal irresponsibility. In the latest Social Security Financing Bill, it once again sacrificed the future of our pensions to better serve short-term electoral clientelism. Constant flip-flopping on Europe. A disturbing fascination with Putin and Trump.
The RN has become the new champion of ‘at the same time’, multiplying its ideological zigzags. After a decade of sailing by sight, France needs a course and a compass, not a weather vane that would lead it to shipwreck.”
She goes on to hammer home the message that working with the far-right is a failed strategy, criticising those who “believe they can ‘reason’ with it, ‘manoeuvre’ it. Illusion, compromise, disappear it”, telling the readers that “there is nothing to be gained from those who despise the Republican right, its values and its history.”
“To ally oneself with the RN is to fade into the background. It is to become its auxiliaries, its guarantee of respectability. The right is not for sale! It does not exist to serve as a stepping stone for others. It must exist to put France back on its feet.”
And during all of this, she makes a concerted effort to make it clear that her opposition and fighting against the far-right “does not mean fighting the French people who vote for it”:
“They are not ‘lost souls’ of the Republic. Their fear of insecurity is not a fantasy. Their concern about uncontrolled immigration is not a resurgence of a dark past. The anxiety of social decline is not fiction. These French people should not be stigmatised by some or deceived by the false promises of others. They deserve respect, truth, but above all action, because it is public impotence that fuels their vote.”
And this, is going to be the ultimate battle for everyone campaigning against the extremist far-right and far-left parties this year, with one of the key strategies being that any resistance to the far-right or the far-left is, in one way or another, an attack on the will of the people.
We’ve seen these strategies being successfully exported from Donald Trumps US operations to the United Kingdom, to Belgium, to Germany and Italy, and the effort is continuing in France.
And this is a tightrope that the French politicians are having to walk now, with many of the extremist politicians finding it difficult to defend many of their political positions and behaviour, and instead of finding ways to defend these, they sidestep the issues and turn their opposition into the enemies of their supporters and those around them.
And sadly, this is working well.
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Great analysis of the tightrope French center-right politicians are walking right now. Pecresse's distinction between opposing the far-right without attacking their voters is smart politically, though dunno how sustainable that is long term. The observation about sidestepping policy defense by reframing oppsition as attacks on supporters is spot-on, that's basically the playbook everywhere now and it works because people take criticism of their choices way more personally than they used to.