Former French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner officially announced on Friday 31 July his candidacy for the presidency of the majority group in the General Assembly in September.
After François de Rugy, he is the second declared candidate to succeed Gilles Le Gendre; who has been criticized internally and who will leave his post at the start of the new term.
Voting is scheduled for 9 and 10 September to reveal the results at the opening of the LREM parliamentary days, held in Amiens on 10 and 11 of the same month.
“Yes, I want to be a candidate”.
“Yes, I want to be a candidate for the presidency of our group. I want to carry our values with you. I would like to fully reconnect, alongside you, in the Assembly, with this spirit of conquest born during the campaign”; writes Christophe Castaner in his message to the LREM MEPs.
“Some colleagues joke that he wants it so badly it seems he wants to repeat it half a dozen times;” ironized a “‘walker”.
Christophe Castaner; who will once again become a deputy for Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, proposed a ticket with deputy Marie Lebec; who “would be first vice-president”.
“With Marie, we share a desire to act effectively and to rediscover the spirit of our commitment to Emmanuel Macron;” wrote the 54-year-old former Minister of the Interior.
A Member of Parliament, who confirms Christophe Castaner’s candidacy, indicates that he intends to support Aurore Bergé, whose name is also circulating for the presidency of the group.
Candidacy of Aurore Bergé
For her part, Aurore Bergé has announced her candidacy in a text in which she explains that she wants to defend a group; “that erases its personal struggles in favor of the only struggles that are worthwhile: those of our collective”.
She also tackles her opponents: “You know where I come from. But if I have rightly chosen to leave the right, it is not so that the ideas of the conservative right will win out! “I chose to leave the right not so that the ideas of the conservative right would win out, but to “build something else, other ideas, other methods”.
Source: Le Monde
