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A ‘Titanic’ flop: lacklustre rally turns up the heat on conservative front-runner Valérie Pécresse

Valérie Pécresse’s first major campaign gathering was meant to energise a sputtering presidential bid rattled by defections and self-doubt. Instead, it exposed a key weakness of a conservative candidate ill-suited to the raucous world of campaign rallies.

Five years after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, have France’s conservatives once again backed the wrong horse in the race for the Elysée Palace?

This nagging question has come back to haunt the mainstream conservative Les Républicains party after a dreary week that began with a string of high-profile defections and ended with an underwhelming campaign rally at the Zenith concert hall in Paris on Sunday. Pécresse, who won a party primary in December, also suffered a humiliation this week when her former boss and conservative champion Nicolas Sarkozy savaged her campaign in private remarks that were leaked to the press.

Sarkozy, the last conservative to win a presidential election back in 2007, has notably refrained from lending Pécresse his support, reportedly irked by her failure to credit him on the campaign trail. Instead he offered her words of advice during a face-to-face meeting on Friday, which Pécresse described as “frank and warm”. So did François Fillon, the 2017 conservative frontrunner whose presidential run was fatally derailed by a “fake job” scandal involving payments to his wife.

According to Pécresse, both Sarkozy and Fillon told her: “Be yourself.”

But “herself” she clearly was not on Sunday as the normally mild-mannered Pécresse attempted to morph into a fiery orator before a crowd of more than 7,000 flag-waving supporters at Zenith hall. The conservative nominee looked distinctly uncomfortable during her hour-long address, at times adopting a martial tone and unnaturally deep voice to lambast Macron’s presidency, promise a “new France” or praise the French tradition of “enjoying beef steaks with a splash of good wine”.

As her lengthy speech drew to a close, Les Républicains officials were all smiles and praise for their candidate when facing the cameras. But off the record, the same officials blasted her performance, some almost with relish. One party stalwart likened the speech to the Titanic heading for disaster; another bluntly told investigative media outlet Mediapart – minutes after clapping enthusiastically – that “frankly, it was nul à chier” (it sucked).

French presidential campaign: Pécresse promises 'new France' at first major rally

The next morning, Pécresse scrambled to limit the damage, telling RTL radio she was “more at ease speaking directly to the French people” or in face-to-face interviews and debates – formats in which she has, indeed, fared significantly better.

“I know a candidate who struggled with his first rallies and I think his name was Emmanuel Macron,” she quipped, referring to the current French president’s first campaign rallies five years ago, when the centrist political novice was mocked for yelling his voice hoarse. “If you’re looking for orators, there are plenty on the campaign trail," she added. "I’m someone who gets things done.”

>> Valérie Pécresse: 'The Bulldozer' conservative who vows to restore French pride

Caught in between Macron and the far right
The head of the Paris region and a former higher education and budget minister, Pécresse won her party’s nomination on a platform she described as "one-third Margaret Thatcher and two-thirds Angela Merkel". She has billed herself as “la Dame du faire”, the woman “who gets things done” and a play on the French translation of “the Iron Lady” (la Dame de fer), Thatcher’s nickname.

Polls suggest she is the only one with a chance of defeating Macron in the second round of the presidential election on April 24. However, her failure to energise conservative voters has cast doubt on her even making it to the all-important run-off. Recent voter surveys have shown her support slipping while her rivals on the far right, including the 2017 runner-up Marine Le Pen, hold up.

>> Explainer: How does France's two-round presidential election work?

Though still a formidable force in parliament and in local government, Les Républicains are squeezed between an increasingly right-leaning incumbent president and the new dark horse on the far right: controversial pundit Eric Zemmour, who has eaten into far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s base and is also luring away more traditional conservatives. With Macron already occupying much of her economic platform and the far right stealing her thunder on the issues of crime and immigration, Pécresse has to walk a tightrope to avoid bleeding support on both sides.

The delicate balancing act cost her a prominent supporter last week when her former cabinet colleague Eric Woerth, a key Sarkozy ally, threw his weight behind Macron, saying he did not agree with Les Républicains’ “nostalgic and inward-looking” take on France. Two other Sarkozy allies jumped ship in the following days and analysts say more are expected to do so in the coming weeks.

Party moderates may well have been further irked on Sunday by Pécresse’s reference to the “great replacement” theory – the conspiratorial belief that white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants that has inspired extreme-right figures around the world, including Christchurch mass shooter Brenton Tarrant.

The conservative candidate made a deliberately ambiguous reference to replacement theory in her speech on Sunday, saying she was “not resigned to the great replacement” that was now taking place in France. She later said she had been misunderstood, claiming she meant to attack Zemmour for his frequent use of the phrase. But her critics were unconvinced.

Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo – herself struggling in the polls – said the conservative nominee had "crossed yet another Rubicon" by adopting the language of extreme-right conspiracy theories. “There are now three far-right candidates”, added her leftwing rival Christiane Taubira, a former justice minister, lumping Pécresse together with Le Pen and Zemmour. The anti-racism watchdog SOS Racisme also slammed the conservative nominee for pandering to the far right, saying her words were “not worthy of a major contender for the presidency of the Republic".

Pécresse’s woes stood in stark contrast with the jubilant mood in Zemmour’s camp on Monday as it claimed 100,000 members for the fledgling Reconquête! (Reconquest) party, which the former pundit and polemicist founded just two months ago.

Pécresse “has made a major strategic blunder by borrowing the words and ideas of Eric Zemmour”, said Guillaume Peltier, another prominent defector from Les Républicains, who is now Zemmour’s spokesperson. In doing so, Peltier added, she has given conservative voters “a permit to vote [Zemmour]”.

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