Laurent Wauquiez ruminates. Has the leader of the Les Républicains (LR) deputies lost everything in the space of a few weeks? His presidential dreams? Its media space? Since the appointment of the new government of François Bayrou, Monday December 23, the elected official from Haute-Loire has almost disappeared from the photo.
He seems eclipsed by his rival within LR, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau. In less than three months, the Vendéen has managed to find a place in the public debate. And he kept his position at Place Beauvau in the centrist government. A consecration for the former senator, previously inaudible.
But what about the former president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, who was yesterday described as the hope of the right? “Laurent Wauquiez exists, but the photo tends to become more and more blurry when the subject moves away from the lens and the government framework”observes Frédéric Dabi, general director of the IFOP polling institute.
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To those who want to hear him, the representative of the hard right assured, on December 23, during a group meeting by videoconference, that he refused to be part of this new executive, for lack of having obtained his dream ministry: a great Bercy. LR deputies raise their eyebrows. Three months earlier, the same assured that he had refused this portfolio within the government of LR Michel Barnier. This time, Laurent Wauquiez says he declined the offer from a labor ministry “enlarged”. “He wanted Bercy with a clear roadmap on the budget: reduction in public spending without an increase in taxation. Another ministry without a clear road map had no interest for him, a morocco is not an end in itself”enlightens the spokesperson for the elected representative of Haute-Loire.
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