The relationship to polls is always paradoxical. When they are favorable, then they are encouraging, and even proof of a policy that works. When they are negative, these results should conversely be taken with a great deal of distance, recalling that it is almost intrinsic to these opinion studies to contain errors. So, to avoid any lawsuit in bad faith, you might as well find an in-between.
This is what the supporters of Édouard Philippe seem to be doing, welcoming without fanfare the OpinionWay survey published Sunday in Le Parisien and placing the former Prime Minister as the personality most likely to bring together the right-wing electorate and of the Center. “We must always remember that a poll does not say anything about the future… but it still informs a state of mind at a specific moment. So it puts balm in the heart, it’s a positive photograph of what is happening today, we take, ”summarizes a relative.
Despite a rare speech wanting to overhang – his new book, Places that say, will be published on September 13 next to Éditions JC Lattès -, Édouard Philippe can thus rejoice to be designated as the best candidate of the right and the center for the next presidential election, by a majority of supporters from both the presidential coalition (88%) and Republicans (66%). He is therefore ahead of personalities such as the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire (acclaimed by 62% of macronists), the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin (46%), or even the president of the MoDem, François Bayrou (26%).
Above all, the ex-tenant of Matignon, at the head of his own party, Horizons, performs better with the LR than Laurent Wauquiez (50%), yet tipped as the future candidate of the right, and cultivating the same rarity in his expression. The regional president is also making his traditional return to Mont Mézenc this weekend, in all discretion.
“It means that there is no need to be on the news channels every morning to be spotted by the French”, remarked with satisfaction the former mayor and now Horizons deputy Frédéric Valletoux . “In creating his movement, Édouard Philippe always said that he was on the right. He has a real consistency and freedom, and maybe that’s what the French appreciate too, ”he continues, while encouraging signs have also recently come from the right.
Without providing any support, the LR president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher – with whom Édouard Philippe had lunch at the start of the summer – recalled on France Inter that “of course, and not lip service”, the former Prime Minister is still part of his political family. “I say, including for my political family, that we must first rebuild a project, regain confidence with the French”, also underlined the elected representative of Yvelines. Adding to want to wait “when the time comes” to see if Laurent Wauquiez, “talent of our political family”, is the most likely to carry the candidacy of the Republicans.
On the other hand, it is with caution that the rest of the Republicans welcome this classification. “A study four years from an election is worth nothing”, sweeps an LR executive, anxious not to bury Laurent Wauquiez too quickly. The elected official also appears in second position (54%) behind Édouard Philippe (60%) of the voting intentions of right-wing sympathizers. Far ahead of Bruno Le Maire and Xavier Bertrand (46%), Gérald Darmanin (44%) and Marine Le Pen (40%). Asked about Europe 1, François Bayrou also qualifies the scope of these results. “The polls without exception on the last elections were seriously wrong each time,” he prefers to recall.
The mayor of Pau is not the only one to be relegated to the ranks of the bottom. This is also the case for the mayor (LR) of Cannes, David Lisnard, who continues to plead for a primary. Aurélien Pradié, the young deputy of Lot, who distinguished himself this year by carrying a singular voice and often criticized on the right, also stands out there by occupying the last place of the most consensual personality on the right.
