PRESIDENTIAL: A “historic” meeting of the Horizons party in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
This Wednesday, April 6, in Dijon, Alain Chrétien brought together the main personalities in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, members of the party founded by Édouard Philippe. According to the mayor of Vesoul, Horizons intends to “give an important role to local elected officials”.
The main leaders of Horizons met in a Dijon brasserie this Wednesday, February 6, 2022 before the meeting in support of Emmanuel Macron in view of the presidential election.
Around Alain Chrétien, mayor of Vesoul and regional delegate Bourgogne-Franche-Comté d’Horizons, several personalities from the right and from the center met to join the party founded in October 2021 by Édouard Philippe in order to contribute to the eventual presidential majority of Emmanuel Macron through a parliamentary group in the National Assembly following the next legislative elections. Objective at least fifteen deputies throughout France.
To date, Horizons claims 300 committees, including around fifty already formed or in the making in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The party does not communicate the number of members.
A “historic” meeting
“It’s historic, it’s the first meeting of Horizons Bourgogne-Franche-Comté”, launches Alain Chrétien, taking the floor and seeing the different departments represented.
Around him are in particular Claire Vuillemin (municipal councilor of opposition of Dijon, departmental coordinator of Côte-d’Or), Henri-Bénigne de Vregille (municipal councilor of opposition in Dijon, delegate Horizons in Dijon, also member of Acting the constructive right), Sylvain Comparot (member of the Horizons committee of Dijon and former candidate for the municipal elections in 2020), Ludovic Rochette (mayor of Brognon, president of the community of communes Norge and Tille, president of the AMF 21 and deputy of the outgoing MP for the second constituency of the Côte-d’Or), Yves Bonniau (municipal councilor of Talant; another Talantais is excused, Nicolas Marin, because he was part of the meeting order service), Élisabeth Roblot (vice- president of the Saône-et-Loire departmental council in charge of tourism and Horizons referent for Bresse), Nicolas Paquot (mayor of Etouvans, president of the opposition group within the Pays de Montbéliard Agglom intercommunality ation and Horizon referent for this territory), Éric Delabrousse (Horizons delegate for Besançon), Mathieu Dizien-Cheviet (member of the Horizons committee for Besançon), Frédéric Huguet (member of the Horizons committee for Besançon), Sandrine Cheney (member of the Horizons committee de Lons-le-Saunier) and Jacques Bailly (former president of the University of Franche-Comté, present as an “observer”).
Support Édouard Philippe and Emmanuel Macron
“You are here because you appreciated the work of Édouard Philippe at Matignon, because you have center-right values, progressivism, humanism, openness, tolerance, which, for many of you you, you did not support the withdrawal of those who were among the Republicans who flirt with demagoguery, populism, sectarianism, that you wanted to find yourself in a political family that is both faithful to the values of the right, and that it seemed to you that Édouard Philippe had the capacities, the charisma and the competence to bring together all those of the centre-right who no longer met in traditional political families and who also wanted to support the action of the former Prime Minister and therefore of the President who had appointed him”, summarizes Alain Chrétien, adding “we especially want the President of the Republic to be re-elected”.
An “important” role given to mayors
The new party, which has been in existence for barely six months, sets itself the municipal or inter-municipal and regional levels as its organizational perimeter.
“It is not a question of setting up a party of mayors, it is a popular party”, specifies however the regional delegate. “By basing the organization on the municipality when the mayor is a member of Horizons, Édouard Philippe wishes to give it particular weight because they want local elected officials to be heard more – we have seen during the pandemic that fortunately there local elected representatives had to organize the territory – and therefore that they had a special role. (…) [Édouard Philippe] saw it when he created the UMP, when he was with the Republicans, when he was Prime Minister, that local elected officials are sometimes too much in the second line when they have experience, things to say for a little influence government policy. (…) It is by giving an important role to local elected officials in Horizons that we will hope to be able, in the next five-year term, to reverse the roles a little and avoid this centralized and top-down power but, on the contrary, have something more reciprocal.”
Horizons has “all legitimacy” to present candidates for the legislative elections
Regarding parliamentarians, Horizons currently has 4 senators and 14 outgoing deputies. In Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, in view of the next legislative elections, the regional delegate claims “a dozen solid candidates” out of the 27 constituencies.
“People who want, who have the fishing, who have a political strategy, who have a territorial anchorage to propose a new parliamentary political offer which is completely complementary to the network that we are building at the local level.” Some present around the table no doubt recognized each other.
“The principle is a relationship of trust with the President of the Republic but, also, we assume a balance of power with our electoral partners, the REM, the Modem, Territory of Progress, Agir…”, declares Alain Chrétien. “With our friends from Modem and LaRem, we want the re-election of the president, we want the success of the five-year term that is about to begin. It is necessary that in 2027, France is strong, powerful and that we assume the balance sheet.
If the regional delegate wishes that these different electoral partners unite behind the Horizons candidates invested and satisfying the label of the presidential majority Ensemble Citoyens, he does not rule out the possibility that “in certain territories” candidates from these different the parties are in competition. “We’ll see how the dice fall!” »
“Each constituency has a different history and context, so it is very difficult to impose a single principle on each constituency”, continues Alain Chrétien, “even if, by definition, the outgoing MP has every legitimacy to represent himself, (… ) but we also have every legitimacy to propose profiles and candidacies, including to arbitrate in relation to an outgoing deputy, there is no taboo!”
“We finally have this freedom to be able to overcome divisions”
“For me, it is a great pride that everyone now assumes to go beyond the divisions and to find themselves on what brings us closer”, indicates the former member of the Republicans a few minutes before listening to the words of François Rebsamen, member of the Socialist Party having rallied Emmanuel Macron.
“I experienced this with the president of the Haute-Saône department [NDLR : Yves Krattinger, ancien socialiste devenu divers gauche en 2017] against whom I was in opposition for ten years, today, we find ourselves on what brings us together. (…) I am for a capitalist economy which regulates its excesses, which protects the weakest, I am for business, for responsibility like many centre-lefts, we have dropped the shackles that imprisoned us in postures, we finally do politics with sincerity. (…) We finally have this freedom to be able to overcome divisions and work with people with whom we have a different political history but with whom we agree on the substance. That François Rebsamen is now in this large central majority of the President of the Republic, it is a great pleasure to find him this evening, we are on national politics, we are in a presidential election, not a municipal election.
“There is no longer an ideological corpus”, analyzes for his part Nicolas Paquot, “today, within the LR as within the PS, ideologically, they make the splits more than us within the presidential majority “.
“In the hemicycle of the departmental council in Saône-et-Loire, in the majority of President Accary, you have Walkers, Republican inserts, Horizons people and you especially have non-insert people”, testifies Élisabeth Roblot. “It’s going very well. We can all work together when we have a common interest,” she says, citing the tourism policies that resulted in “a consensus” with the departmental opposition.
“We know how to manage”, slips in turn Ludovic Rochette about the differences between local issues and national issues which bring coalitions with variable geometry according to the levels. “Locally, especially in small towns, we know how to work with everyone on a municipal council, perhaps with an opposition. Now, when we talk about going beyond, it’s about going beyond politics but also going beyond uses. (…) To be in the same room with people who do not agree locally but who have the same national aspiration, this is something that seems completely logical to me.
“That François Rebsamen has chosen to support Emmanuel Macron, so much the better”
“Indeed, we are in presidential elections, we all want Emmanuel Macron to be re-elected”, declares Claire Vuillemin, adding to remain “for the moment” in opposition to the mayor of Dijon at the municipal level.
“This election is really crucial. Once again the extreme right is at the gates of power”, reacts Henri-Bénigne de Vregille. “That François Rebsamen has chosen to support Emmanuel Macron, so much the better. (…) We have supported the President of the Republic for five years, he has supported him favorably for two months.
“During the municipal elections in Dijon, I said enough that it was necessary to be on a local project”, recalls Sylvain Comparot then appearing at the top of the list invested by the presidential majority. The new member of Horizons is in phase with the slogan of the party – “To see far to do well” – since he claims a vision “for the next 15-20 years”. “We meet around Emmanuel Macron’s presidential project and not on a project that would have been modified by François Rebsamen, it is François Rebsamen who is taking the step towards the presidential project and not the other way round, so from there, it makes sense that we all meet again.”
“We are here to express our support for the President of the Republic”, launches Alain Chrétien for the time being before joining the Devosge room to settle in the first row. Several participants in this “historic” meeting will also take place in the room, in a scattered way.
Jean-Christophe Tardivon