The former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy “wishes” that the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, take “the final step” towards the Elysée in 2027, in a book to be published next week including BFM-TV and Le Parisien unveiled first excerpts on Wednesday August 16.
The student dubbed by the master. Former spokesperson for Mr. Sarkozy, Gérald Darmanin “will he be able to take another step, even the final step, that which leads to the presidency of the Republic? I wish him, because he has obvious qualities, ”wrote the former head of state in this book entitled Le Temps des combats (Fayard, 592 pages), announced in bookstores for August 22.
Failed at Matignon and confirmed at the Ministry of the Interior during the reshuffle last month, Mr. Darmanin is “one of the most promising forties”, insists Mr. Sarkozy, adding that the “success” of a of his “friends” would make him “pleased”.
The interested party does not hide his ambitions and is already posing as a bulwark against the far right of Marine Le Pen. “What worries me now is what will happen in 2027,” Mr. Darmanin told Le Figaro on Sunday, pitting his “popular compass” against “the liberal bobo left” and the “technicians” sure to lose. according to him.
Suiting words to deeds, the Minister of the Interior will count his supporters on August 27 in his stronghold of Tourcoing, where 400 people including 90 parliamentarians and several ministers are invited for his political return, around the theme of “expectations of the working classes “.
“A strong right”, the “only effective dam” at the RN
In an interview with Le Figaro published on Wednesday, Nicolas Sarkozy also warns the members of his camp against the “error” that an alliance with the National Rally (RN) would be. Marine Le Pen, by not calling to vote for the right-wing candidate in the second round of the 2012 presidential election, would have “eliminated a strong right”, the “only effective barrier” to the RN according to Mr. Sarkozy. “New personalities could not impose themselves”, stings the former head of state in a reference to Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of his political family in 2022, in whom he had not given his confidence.
The obstacle to an alliance between Les Républicains and the RN “is not Marine Le Pen’s supposed membership of the ‘extreme right'”, a “caricature” denounced by the former head of state to Le Figaro , but rather Marine Le Pen’s ideas on “Europe”, “culture”, “the history of France” and finally “its economic program, which is that of the left of the 1970s”. Last weak point of the candidate: she would have “neither the entourage nor the experience to assume such functions”.
However, during the interview given to the daily marked on the right, Mr. Sarkozy takes up the themes dear to the RN: questioned by journalists on his speech in Grenoble in 2010 – where the president targeted Roma and travelers – and the link he made there between delinquency and immigration, the former president persists and signs: “We were right against all those who were in denial of reality. »
Mr. Sarkozy then waits to face the far right one of the “talents” of a right “in reconstruction”, “both among the Republicans and in the presidential camp”.
