Can the presidential candidate of the French Conservatives withstand pressure from the far-right wing of the Ciotti party?
(Photo: dpa)
The Union parties in Germany are currently experiencing the painful loss of power. A feeling that their political partners in France have known for a long time: The bourgeois-conservative party family in the neighboring country, which goes back to Charles de Gaulle and which now operates under the name Les Républicains, has been in the opposition for almost ten years. And the chances that this will change in the upcoming spring elections are currently not particularly good.
The problems of their French sister party should be a warning example for the CDU and CSU. They show what can happen when a former center-right people’s party loses its bearings outside of government responsibility: The conservatives’ attempt to compete with right-wing populists in the fields of migration policy and national identity has only made them even more confused .
The Républicains are not only being driven by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing extremist Rassemblement National. The Islamophobic publicist Éric Zemmour, who is getting a lot of attention with his shrill warnings of the impending demise of French culture and who also wants to become president, has further sharpened the tone of the migration debate.
The conservatives will not be able to win the game with exaggerated fears of foreign infiltration. When in doubt, Zemmour, convicted of hate speech, still steps up a gear. At the same time, the Républicains alienated voters from the middle class, to whom the liberal camp of President Emmanuel Macron opened a new political home.
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At the weekend, Valérie Pécresse won the Républicains’ membership decision to run for president. Even Pécresse, which has the reputation of a moderate and economically liberal conservative, could not avoid serving the desire for isolation in the pre-election campaign. To some of the party base, however, their positions did not seem to go far enough.
After all, almost 40 percent of the party members voted in the runoff election for the extreme right-wing MP Eric Ciotti, who does not shy away from conspiracy theories about a planned “re-population”. Should this wing of the Républicains become even stronger in the future, the CDU and CSU will have to consider carefully whether they want to continue working with this party on a European level.
More: France’s Conservatives send Valérie Pécresse in the presidential election