France now has a chance to bury the demons of its darkest political era

Can Valérie Pécresse, Les Républicains’ candidate, overtake Le Pen and Zemmour, asks Denis MacShane

Les Républicains’ candidate for the 2022 French presidential election, Valerie Pecresse (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Valérie Pécresse, the candidate now chosen by the main centre-right French party, Les Républicains, could easily have fitted into Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet. She is a centrist, liberal, multi-lingual, pro-business technocrat with the same elite education as Macron.

An English comparison might be Amber Rudd or, in a previous Tory government, Virginia Bottomley. Pécresse is a friendly, articulate, middle-of-the-road mother of three, with loads of charm and a nice smile, but without that killer focus to go fast to the top.

She saw off three male opponents for the nomination. Michel Barnier, Monsieur Brexit, tried with a very late bid as the older Joe Biden-type candidate. But he had to pretend to be an anti-European and issued windy threats against Brussels which dismayed his fans and failed to convince party activists.