Justice suspends expulsion of conservative leader for collaborating with Le Pen

The crisis of the French right has deepened. The Court of Justice of Paris has suspended this Friday the expulsion of Eric Ciotti as president of the Republicans (LR) party, a vote taken at an emergency meeting of the party’s executive on Tuesday, after the Republicans leader announced an electoral pact with the extremist right of Marine Le Pen.

Ciotti not only did not comply with the decision but also filed an appeal in court, arguing that according to the party’s statutes, only the president can call such a meeting. A Paris judge agreed with him and declared the executive’s decision invalid.

The court specifies that this suspension is valid only “until a final resolution on the merits is issued.”

With this decision, the court avoids ruling for the time being on the essence of the issue, that is, establishing what the legitimate leadership in the party is. However, for practical purposes this means that Ciotti will be able to maintain control over the party at least in the coming days, with access not only to party offices, but also to its members’ files and candidacy decisions. Elections. Legislative elections on June 30 and July 7, whose deadline for submission is next Sunday the 16th.

“It was clear what was going to happen, I had no doubt, because what they (the executive) did was very vile,” Eric Ciotti told the BFMTV network minutes after learning of the decision. “Now it’s time to focus on the campaign and this right-wing coalition, which is what I wanted, so that tomorrow we can defeat the extreme left,” he added.

“He lied to us”

Indeed, the process that will fragment the party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkoy began on Monday night. The main figures of the conservative formation, including the president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, and the leaders of the groups in the two houses of parliament, met to discuss the next steps in preparation for the electoral campaign for the legislative elections. Eric Ciotti was also present at a meeting in which it was agreed to maintain the autonomy of the Gaullist right in the face of possible pact proposals from Macron or the extreme right.

A day later, the party president surprised everyone by announcing he had closed an electoral pact with the extreme right, also admitting he held talks with Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen on Monday. “He lied to us,” Bruno Retailleau, the Republicans leader in the Senate, said minutes later. “There is no doubt that it was for personal reasons with regard to his Nice constituency and to put himself in a situation where we could not turn back because we had candidates who entered the campaign.”

If Ciotti expected his party colleagues to accept this decision as a fait accompli, he was wrong. Hours later, after strong criticism, a meeting of the party executive was called in which the immediate dismissal of the president was voted on. Ciotti, who did not attend the meeting, did not comply with the decision, believing that the executive was “contrary to the law”. Thus began a battle that took both sides to court, where Ciotti won his first victory.