Three months before the European elections, scheduled for June 9, the absence of a head of the list in the presidential camp upset many Macronists. But the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, decided by choosing MEP Valérie Hayer to lead the European campaign of the presidential majority, according to information from La Tribune Dimanche, Sunday February 25, confirmed to Le Monde by several sources.
Saturday, on the sidelines of the Agricultural Show, Emmanuel Macron assured that he had chosen his candidate whose official nomination was to come. “There will be a head of the list to be designated for the central bloc and which will be made official in the coming days,” he said, while most of the parties have already made their locomotive known.
Jordan Bardella for the National Rally, Marie Toussaint among the ecologists, Manon Aubry for the “rebellious”, François-Xavier Bellamy for the Republicans and even Raphaël Glucksmann for the socialist list, have been designated for several weeks now.
Campaign launch in Lille on March 9
Parliamentary collaborator of former minister and MEP Jean Arthuis, Ms. Hayer was a long-time member of the UDI, before joining La République en Marche (former name of Renaissance) in 2017 and then being elected in Brussels in 2019 on the list Macronist then led by Nathalie Loiseau. With 22.4% of the votes, the list of the presidential camp arrived just behind the National Rally, already led by Jordan Bardella (23.3%).
Nearly five years after her election, Valérie Hayer, 37 and the daughter of a farmer, took the helm of the centrist Renew group in the European Parliament in January after the incumbent, Stéphane Séjourné, entered the government as minister Foreign Affairs. The latter was also expected to head the Macronist list for the next election, before becoming a minister. The presidential list, which will include candidates from MoDem, Horizons and the UDI, will launch its campaign on March 9 during a meeting in Lille.
