Eric Ciotti, the leader of French moderate conservatives Les Republicains, is seeking to save his party from a likely painful defeat in the 30 June and 7 July snap French parliamentary elections. Yet, his decision might split it in half.
The French "Republican" Right could crumble after Eric Ciotti's bid for an electoral alliance with Marine Le Pen's Far-Right party, National Rally (RN).
The president of centre-right The Republicans declared to the French channel TF1 that his party has to strike a deal for "an alliance with the National Rally, with its candidates, and all of those people that share the ideas of the Right" Eric Ciotti has called the conservative forces to gather and "stand against the powerlessness of the Macronisme and the danger of Unbowed France, La France Insoumise" the Left wing party of Jean-Luc Mélanchon
According to Eric Ciotti's wording, this alliance could be the last attempt for the moderate-conservative to survive after the political defeats suffered between 2017 and the last electoral races.
The right-wing French agreement should consist of a sort of agreement between The Republicans and the National Rally to withdraw their candidates in the constituencies and maximise the chances of their respective MPs to get the seats.
As Eric Ciotti explained "the candidates ready to accept this solution will not have to run against rivals from (Marine Le Pen's) party". Consequently, the moderate right-winger candidates will receive the votes of the RN electors.
The announcement so far have had the effect to fracture The Republicans. The classic establishment of this party is mostly reluctant to join such an alliance, while some few young candidates are more open to create a Right-Wing coalition, especially after the EU elections results.
The consensus for the big centre-right French party has been heavily affected by the pro-business dynamic approach of Emmanuel Macron and the anti-migration and security arguments of the Far-right.
The long path of the French moderate conservatism
Les Républicains party has partially taken over the political legacy of General Charles de Gaulle conservative and anti-fascist resistance against the German invasion during WWII.
The Republicans is the rebranded version of the UMP party (Union for a Popular Movement) funded in 2002 to gather all the centre-right and democratic-right political forces (pro-EU Liberal Conservatives, Catholics and Gaullists) to support the then French President Jacques Chirac in the presidential elections of 2002.
Jacques Chirac won the elections against the French far-right post war historical leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of Marine Le Pen and became president with a second mandate until 2007, replaced at the Élysée by Nicolas Sarkozy that lost the elections against the Socialist François Hollande.
Overwhelmed by some political corruption scandals, the big party of the French moderate-conservatives lost its contacts with the French society.
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron Liberal-Democratic restyling of French politics allowed its movement to drain moderate votes from the Left and the Right, shrinking the size of both the Socialist Party and the Centre-Right The Republicans that entered into an unstoppable decline.