Shock and outrage erupted Tuesday across France’s political spectrum after the leader of France’s traditionally conservative Les Républicains party said he was willing to enter an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN).
“We need to unite our forces,” Les Républicains chief Eric Ciotti said when he revealed he had been in talks with Le Pen over an entente to defeat French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal Renaissance party at this summer’s snap parliamentary elections.
But it’s safe to say not everyone feels the same way — including within Ciotti’s own team. We rounded up the bluntest reactions from across the French political ecosystem.
We quit!
Two Les Républicains senators, Sophie Primas and Jean-François Husson, announced Tuesday that they were leaving the party in protest over the proposed tie-up.
“An alliance with the RN in the legislative elections is of course without me! I am leaving Les Républicains,” Husson wrote, while Primas said she would “reluctantly, and after years [in the party]” do the same.
Collaborator!
“We know that Eric Ciotti would not have crossed the channel in 1940,” Les Républicains lawmaker Julien Dive raged, referring to Charles de Gaulle’s move to the U.K. to lead the French resistance movement rather than stay and ally with Adolf Hitler’s Nazis during World War II.
Assassin!
“Today, [former French President] Jacques Chirac died a second time. And Eric Ciotti has just assassinated the Republican right,” said Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the French National Assembly from Macron’s Renaissance party.
Sellout!
Meanwhile, L’Haÿ-les-Roses Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun, from Les Républicains, defended the ideals of the French center-right, saying it “is not for sale.”
“She [the conservative movement] must never choose the worst, submit and ultimately compromise herself. The Republican right, heir to General de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy cannot be the crutch of the French extreme right,” he added in a statement.
Why don’t you just resign already!
Senate President Gérard Larcher, from Les Républicains, simply demanded Ciotti’s resignation. “Following Éric Ciotti’s statements, I believe that he can no longer preside over our movement and must resign from his mandate as president of the Republicans,” he said.
Is it too late to say désolé?
5 furious reactions to French conservatives’ talks with far right
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