France: Les Republicains hold presidential primary

By Hajer M’tiri

PARIS (AA) – The center-right Les Republicains (LR) party on Sunday will hold its first round of primaries to select nominees for next year’s presidential election.

As the primary is open to all registered on the electoral roll, voters can cast a ballot for a €2 fee after signing a charter of values “to share the republican values of the right and center”.

Alain Juppe, 71, center-right mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister under Jacques Chirac is the favorite to be the rightist candidate.

Key candidates include party leader Nicolas Sarkozy, 61, the French former president from 2007 to 2012 and his prime minister at the time, Francois Fillon, 62.

Also, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 43, a popular ecology minister under Sarkozy, who was sacked as the party’s vice president in December 2015 after she criticized his policy. And Normandy MP Bruno Le Maire, 47, who was an agriculture minister during Sarkozy’s presidency.

The other two candidates are Jean-Francois Cope, former UMP leader and France's budget minister from 2005 to 2007 under Chirac, and Jean-Frederic Poisson, the president of the Parti Chretien-Democrate.

The four candidates are not expected to be in the final run-off.

An Ifop poll published Friday showed Juppe leading the first round with 31 percent, followed by Sarkozy with 30 percent and Fillon at 27 percent.

If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote that person would become the party’s presidential candidate. Short of that, the two candidates with the most votes would move to a run-off poll Nov. 27.

The Socialist party will hold its two-round primary in January. The two-round presidential election will be held April 23 and May 7.