“In 2020, Rachida Dati was nominated to represent Les Républicains in the municipal elections. She decided to leave LR for a personal adventure which weakens us collectively. » In an interview given Thursday, March 28 to Le Figaro, Senator Francis Szpiner announces that he will leave the right-wing group in the Paris Council with “a dozen Republicans and centrists established in different districts of Paris.” Everyone will find themselves within a new group, called “Les Républicains et Centristes – Demain Paris! “.
After the appointment of Rachida Dati to the government, senator Catherine Dumas succeeded her at the head of the Les Républicains group, avoiding an immediate split in the Parisian right. Since then, the active participation of Rachida Dati in a meeting of the head of the Renaissance list in the European elections, Valérie Hayer, has caused new internal turmoil.
“Rachida Dati is campaigning against the candidate [of] LR in the European elections, even though it is an important deadline for the right. In politics, you have to be responsible and have a little morality,” argues Francis Szpiner, who assures that he has obtained the “full support of Eric Ciotti and Hervé Morin,” the leaders of the Republicans and the New Center.
“Natural candidate” or primary for Renaissance
Although he claims not to be a candidate for the 2026 municipal elections, the former mayor of the 16th arrondissement judges that Rachida Dati “is no longer able today to embody the gathering, even less to build it”. “Can the rally take place around a “self-proclaimed” candidate who is unanimous neither in the presidential camp nor among the Republicans? I doubt. »
A recent Ipsos poll for La Tribune Dimanche, however, gives Rachida Dati well ahead of voting intentions in the first round, including in the hypothesis of a rival candidacy on the right of Senator Francis Szpiner.
Since then, Sylvain Maillard, president of the Renaissance deputies and the Parisian federation of the party, has indicated that the presidential majority could come together behind a “natural candidate” for the 2026 municipal elections in Paris, without going through a primary, not not excluding the name of Ms. Dati.
“There are two possibilities,” explained Mr. Maillard: “either a natural candidate from our majority behind whom everyone unites,” or a “vote” from its components (Renaissance, MoDem, Horizons, etc.) “for let there be a rolling start.” Asked about the possible extension of this primary to members of the Republicans, Mr. Maillard spoke of “regular contacts”, motivated by the “need for alternation” in the face of a left which has held City Hall since 2001.
