"Maybe you'll have to help me push." It was 5:15 pm on Wednesday, June 12, and although Annie Genevard, the new interim co-head of Les Républicains (LR), had spare keys, the front door of the conservative party's headquarters were heavy – and not just symbolically. At midday, estranged LR leader Eric Ciotti had ordered the building be closed to "guarantee the safety of the staff." He was bunkered in his Paris office, abandoned by everyone, even his closest advisers, since his decision on Tuesday to accept an electoral alliance with the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in the early parliamentary elections.
With the help of MP Aurélien Pradié and party treasurer Daniel Fasquelle, Genevard eventually entered the party headquarters, as if to regain possession of the premises, thanks to spare keys provided by a former Ciotti aide. "Collaborationtists! Vive la France! Ciotti president!" chanted a young activist favorable to the "union of the right." No one raised an eyebrow. No one was surprised anymore, on a day when LR made a spectacle of itself. "We're in a madhouse," sighed a party employee.
A few minutes earlier, at the end of a meeting of the party's top committee, Genevard announced the unanimous exclusion of Ciotti from the party, saying he was "in total breach of the statutes and the line carried by LR."
The new headquarters of the right-wing party, which moved to the Place du Palais-Bourbon in Paris at the beginning of the year, was an opportunity to turn the page on the electoral defeats associated with the old HQ on Rue de Vaugirard. The old location was also where François Fillon and Jean-François Copé engaged in a political spectacle in 2012 when competing for the presidency of the party then known as Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP).
Behind the heavy blue front door, Ciotti was gone. He had returned to his quaestor's office at the Assemblée Nationale. Despite moving from one office to another, he refused to resign. "He's always been alone, we were his only entourage," sighed a former close adviser of Ciotti's who has resigned, like almost all his young guard. Only two remained loyal to their boss. In the evening, Ciotti denounced a "putsch" on CNews, a French television channel known for favoring the union of the right and the far right. "I know I have the confidence of the party members," he said. He criticized the meeting of the executive committee, questioning its legality, and announced that he would take legal action.
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