FLASH
Shkruar nga Henri Samuel
Former President Nicolas Sarkozy is poised to usher in a new era of far-right politics as he turns his back on a 'republican front'...
It's a story worthy of Alexandre Dumas.
By falling from the Elysee Palace to a grim Parisian prison, Nicolas Sarkozy could now help start one of the biggest political upheavals in modern France, threatening to destroy his own political movement in the process.
This month, Mr. Sarkozy shattered a decades-old taboo by turning his back on a “republican front” of parties that have fought against Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in election after election.
By doing so, the former president is positioning himself as decisive and in effect legitimizing an alliance with the party he once sought to contain, which could spell the death knell for France's center-right.
In a prisoner's diary, written during his 20 days in jail, where he read Dumas's "The Count of Monte Cristo," the classic tale of a wrongly imprisoned man who rises to orchestrate the downfall of his rivals, Mr. Sarkozy recounts a phone call with Ms. Le Pen.
When asked if he would block her coming to power, he writes: "My answer was clear: No," adding that excluding the National Rally from the republican front would be a "mistake."
"The reconstruction of the Right can only happen through the broadest possible alliance, without exceptions and without anathemas," he writes.
He went further by comparing Jordan Bardella, Ms. Le Pen's 30-year-old successor who is poised to run for president next spring if her electoral ban remains in place, to Jacques Chirac, the late Gaullist former president who fought the National Front, the forerunner of the National Rally, throughout his life.
Sarkozy said Bardella's discourse "is not very different from ours at the time," presenting him as the modern heir to Mr. Chirac's conservative and pro-business RPR party.
For a party that once governed France, which now has just 49 deputies in its new form as Les Republicains compared to the National Rally's 123, the shock is existential for the center-right.
This mirrors the decline of the Conservative Party in the UK, where Nigel Farage's Reform Party is leading in the polls, threatening the downfall of a generation of broadly centrist politics.
Describing Mr Sarkozy's comments as "clear", Bardella said the Republicans "have become a small party that cannot win alone" and insisted that the old cordon sanitaire was dead.
“Fronti republikan nuk është gjë tjetër veçse një komplot politik midis njerëzve që nuk bien dakord për asgjë tjetër përveçse për mbrojtjen e pozicioneve të tyre”, tha ai për The Telegraph, duke shtuar se ata “nuk mund ta kenë si projekt të vetëm pengimin e fitores së Tubimit Kombëtar”.
Sondazhet e reja sugjerojnë se votuesit francezë me prirje të djathta janë dakord.
Një sondazh i “Toluna Harris Interactive” për RTL tregon se 2/3 favorizojnë një aleancë Les Republicains-National Rally për zgjedhjet bashkiake, legjislative dhe presidenciale; midis votuesve të qendrës së djathtë, të djathtës dhe të djathtës ekstreme, mbështetja rritet në rreth 70 përqind.
Gjashtë në 10 votues në përgjithësi thonë se një kandidat i vetëm presidencial i krahut të djathtë do të ishte një “gjë e mirë” dhe 72 përqind e votuesve të krahut të djathtë duan që ky kandidat të vijë nga Tubimi Kombëtar. “Diga po shembet”, thotë anketuesi Jean-Daniel Levy.
Alain Duhamel, një analist veteran politik, i tha The Telegraph se momenti ishte historik. “Ky është fundi i së Djathtës Gaulliste dhe fundi i së Djathtës Chirac, e cila gjithmonë kishte përjashtuar çdo afrim me të Djathtën ekstreme.”
Dhe ai beson se ndryshimi në elektorat është tashmë i pakthyeshëm.
"Bashkimi i së Djathtës dhe 'së Djathtës ekstreme' nuk është ende i plotë midis zyrtarëve të zgjedhur, por është bërë tashmë midis votuesve. Pjesa më e madhe e elektoratit republikan - veçanërisht në zonat rurale me rrënjë të thella - është zhvendosur në Tubimin Kombëtar. Zyrtarët e tyre të zgjedhur përfundimisht do të ndjekin."
Ai shtoi një paralajmërim të prerë në lidhje me zgjedhjet presidenciale të vitit 2027: “asnjë kandidat i krahut të djathtë kryesor nuk mund të arrijë në raundin e dytë. Qoftë z. Bruno Retailleau, z. Michel Barnier , apo një apo dy të tjerë, askush nuk ka shanse kundër Bardella-s. Votuesit e tyre thjesht do të kalojnë në Tubimin Kombëtar.”
Fragmentimi i brendshëm i Les Republicains përkeqësohet nga fakti se një pjesë e partisë është ndarë tashmë drejt kampit të Emmanuel Macron, si Edouard Philippe dhe Gerald Darmanin, gjë që po ndikon në sondazhet e tyre pasi ata shihen si të kompromentuar politikisht.
Brenda asaj që ka mbetur nga Les Republicains, pasojat janë bërë helmuese.
Retailleau, kreu i partisë, po lufton për të ruajtur një linjë gaulliste, duke paralajmëruar se çdo pakt me Tubimin Kombëtar do të “vriste atë që ka mbetur nga e Djathta Republikane”.
Përballë tij qëndron Laurent Wauquiez, kreu i vijës së ashpër i grupit parlamentar të Les Republicains , i cili ka propozuar një zgjedhje paraprake gjithëpërfshirëse të krahut të djathtë që shtrihet nga Gerald Darmanin, një ministër i brendshëm i epokës së Macron, deri te Sarah Knafo, nënkryetarja e lëvizjes së ekstremit të djathtë Reconquete të Eric Zemmour.
The party is still traumatized by the spectacular departure of former leader Eric Ciotti in 2024, when he unilaterally attempted to pull Les Republicains into a formal pact with the National Rally. His shocking announcement triggered a Shakespearean psychodrama in which senior party officials barred him from party headquarters and declared him deposed.
After days of legal battles, the courts ruled against him. Mr. Ciotti's passage to the National Convention weakened the Republicans numerically, but left a deeper wound: a party that constantly doubted its leadership.
The turning point came in the vote on the social security budget in December.
Retailleau ordered deputies to reject what he called a “socialist” text that suspended pension reform. But Wauquiez refused to be seen voting alongside the Left or the National Rally. 18 LR deputies, more than a third of the group, ended up supporting the government to save Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
Patrick Cohen of France Inter summed it up by asking: “Who can say what LR really wants to do for the economy?” He described a party “advancing without a leader or a compass,” divided between a Right that now votes with the Left and another that is slowly moving towards the far Right.
Meanwhile, the far right is dominating by every metric. A Harris Interactive poll measuring “electoral potential” puts Bardella at 44 percent (up six) and Ms. Le Pen at 43 percent (up seven). Marion Marechal, Ms. Le Pen’s niece, is third with 30 percent, while the strongest Macronist contenders, Edouard Philippe, Gerald Darmanin and Gabriel Attal, are stuck at around 28 to 30 percent.
For Bardella, the crisis on the traditional right is confirmation that history is changing direction.
"There are two currents on the right," he told The Telegraph newspaper, adding "one is close to us, ideologically and politically. The other has been working with Mr. Emmanuel Macron since 2007."
Politics, he added, "is a matter of big waves. The wave that is taking us is deeply rooted in the country, electorally strong, and I believe it can bring us to power."
Privately, his circle is even more optimistic. A senior adviser said they were “convinced” that the 2027 runoff will be Mr. Bardella or Ms. Le Pen against Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is a fervent far-left figure.
“If it’s Bardella versus Melenchon,” he said, “the unity of the Right is automatic. The debate about the LR disappears overnight.” /Adapted from The Telegraph/
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