In 2024, a dispute within the French right-wing party the Republicans (LR) stemmed from an alliance between its president Éric Ciotti and the far-right party National Rally (RN) for the snap legislative elections earlier that year, which were called after President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the French National Assembly. Initially intended to cover "between 70 and 80" constituencies, the alliance materialized in 61 constituencies, including two incumbent LR deputies.

Described as a political revolution by the LR president and a thunderclap by the media, this move was contested by 700 members of LR's national council, who took legal action, and nearly all of its deputies and senators. The LR political bureau unanimously voted to expel Éric Ciotti, accusing him of conducting secret negotiations without consulting his political family or activists and violating party statutes. Ciotti, however, disputed this expulsion. This marked the first time a major party, if its legal bodies validated the plan, would enter a national coalition with the National Rally, breaking the traditional Republican front against the far right.

The crisis led to the nomination of two groups of candidates, both claiming to represent The Republicans, often in the same constituencies. On one side, Éric Ciotti endorsed around 60 candidates, half of whom were not LR members, and urged support for RN candidates in other constituencies. The Ministry of the Interior classified them under the Union of the Far Right label. On the other side, the party's nomination committee endorsed candidates, including all incumbent deputies except Éric Ciotti and Christelle D'Intorni.

Two deputies were elected in the first round: Christelle D'Intorni from the RN alliance and Philippe Juvin for The Republicans, with only 56 LR candidates qualifying for the second round. In the second round, sixteen additional candidates backed by Ciotti and the RN were elected, surpassing the minimum of fifteen deputies required to form a parliamentary group in the National Assembly. These seventeen deputies formed a separate group in the Seventeenth Legislature of the Fifth Republic, named "To the Right!". The Republicans, meanwhile, secured thirty-nine deputies.

On 31 August 2024, with the party's crisis still unresolved, Éric Ciotti founded the "Union of the Right for the Republic", echoing the former Gaullist party Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR). On 22 September 2024, he announced his departure from The Republicans, leaving the party presidency vacant as of 30 September 2024. Days earlier, for the first time in over a decade, The Republicans returned to power, joining the government of Michel Barnier, which allocated twelve ministerial positions to them.

On 15 October 2024, LR's political bureau unanimously appointed a collective leadership comprising Annie Genevard (secretary general), François-Xavier Bellamy (executive vice-president), Michèle Tabarot (president of the National Nomination Committee), and Daniel Fasquelle (national treasurer). This team managed the party until a new president, Bruno Retailleau, was elected in 2025. The bureau also unanimously tasked Laurent Wauquiez, president of the Republican Right group in the National Assembly, with laying the groundwork for the party's renewal (ideas, name, organization).

Background

Ciotti and the 2022 presidential election Éric Ciotti, an unsuccessful candidate in The Republicans' primary before the 2022 presidential election, was accused of not supporting primary winner Valérie Pécresse, preferring a right-wing candidate Éric Zemmour, a candidate in the presidential election for Reconquête, supported by billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré.

On 26 July 2022, Ciotti announced his candidacy for the Republican leadership election in December 2022. He obtained 42.73% of the vote, ahead of Bruno Retailleau and Aurélien Pradié, and gained the support of 140 elected officials including Laurent Wauquiez and Nadine Morano.

Schism in the midst of the 2023 pension reform

After the presentation of the pension reform law, Pradié was demoted.. In its 18 February 2023 discussion, Ciotti dismissed him, judging his positions against party values,.. worrying that his party alienated popular voter blocs. Seven LR managers wrote to Ciotti criticizing this dismissal and asking for a meeting before any further meetings at headquarters.

Because the bill was via of the constitution, a third of Republican MPs disobeyed Ciotti and Retailleau by voting for a bipartisan no confidence motion on 20 March.

2024 European elections In the 2024 European Parliament election in France, the decline of the LR vote was reflected by François-Xavier Bellamy obtaining 7.2%, after Valérie Pécresse only obtained 4.78% in the 2022 presidential election. The repeated underperformance questioned the party's future.

Development

Preparation and announcement of the alliance project On Tuesday, 11 June 2024, two days after the dissolution of the National Assembly, and with candidate lists for the snap legislative elections due within the week, Éric Ciotti announced in a televised interview that The Republicans would form an alliance with the National Rally, France's main far-right party. This event was orchestad by Vincent Bolloré’s media outlets. The day before, Bolloré finalized the organization at his media empire's headquarters with Éric Ciotti, without informing or consulting his party's elected officials or national council. This alliance had been desired for months by Vincent Bolloré, who had outlined the possibility to journalists outlined the possibility to journalists and editors in his group and met Ciotti each summer for years at his home in Saint-Tropez, where they frequently dined.

One of Bolloré’s close associates, CNews presenter Pascal Praud, was directly informed by the Élysée Palace of the dissolution three hours before its announcement, ahead of Gabriel Attal and the government. However, he did not mention it on air.

The creation of this national right-wing bloc against the New Popular Front and Ensemble was welcomed by Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, and Guilhem Carayon, president of the Young Republicans youth movement. President Emmanuel Macron described the project as a pact with the devil during a press conference.

The project received support from Guy Drut, a gold medalist in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Battle for LR's social media accounts Citing received threats and disorder, Éric Ciotti responded to the expulsion attempt by closing the party headquarters, locking himself inside after giving staff to leave. This allowed him sole access to The Republicans’ Facebook profile, which remained in his hands. He filmed himself alone in his office at the headquarters to emphasize his dissent, staging a video shared on social media. However, he faced a password change on X (formerly Twitter), preventing access to the party's official account.

Using his control of the party's Facebook account, on 11 June, Éric Ciotti and Vincent Bolloré launched a petition to support the union of the right, deemed "manifestly illicit" by digital law expert Alexandre Archambault due to a lack of clarity on personal data usage.

Calls for Resignation "The position expressed by Éric Ciotti is a dead end, does not represent our political family, and in no way reflects The Republicans’ line," stated a column in Le Figaro signed by Bruno Retailleau, Laurent Wauquiez, Valérie Pécresse, Michèle Tabarot, Annie Genevard, François Baroin, Christian Jacob, and Michel Barnier. Other signatories, including Gérard Larcher, LR Senate president, and Olivier Marleix, LR parliamentary group president, called for Éric Ciotti's resignation. Ciotti responded with a surreal confrontation on social media with the rest of his political family. CNews journalist Gauthier Le Bret claimed that Gérard Larcher was negotiating an agreement with the presidential majority, which Larcher immediately denied.

Simultaneous Alignment with Jordan Bardella by Reconquête Leaders

The alignment with Jordan Bardella of the RN coincided with that of leaders from the Reconquête party. Sarah Knafo was invited alongside Sébastien Chenu and Éric Ciotti to the show "Touche pas à mon poste !" on C8, where host Cyril Hanouna asked her to answer a live call from Jordan Bardella in front of over 2 million viewers. The three vice-presidents of Reconquête (Marion Maréchal, Guillaume Peltier, and Nicolas Bay), along with Laurence Trochu, representing four of its five MEPs, called for support for the RN-Éric Ciotti electoral alliance, despite no formal party agreement and in opposition to Éric Zemmour's stance. Éric Zemmour denounced this as a betrayal and announced their expulsion.

Involvement of Vincent Bolloré’s Media Group in the Campaign On CNews, Pascal Praud criticized and excluded LR elected officials who disagreed with Éric Ciotti, caricaturing them as so out of touch with reality when they denounce the fascist danger. Vincent Bolloré’s media group engaged in the campaign like a true political party, aiming to "save soldier Ciotti", a tactic with "parallels" to that of Alfred Hugenberg, a steel and media magnate in Germany in the 1930s, according to Nobel Prize in Economics laureate Esther Duflo. Several regional presidents, such as Xavier Bertrand, Valérie Pécresse, and Laurent Wauquiez, demanded Éric Ciotti's expulsion, with Bertrand describing the RN alliance as a "betrayal" and also calling for the expulsion of LR deputies supported or endorsed by the RN.

Expulsion of Éric Ciotti and Legal Proceedings On 13 June, unable to access the locked headquarters, The Republicans’ political bureau met in a nearby building, where it unanimously voted to expel Éric Ciotti, labeled a "traitor," and tasked Annie Genevard, François-Xavier Bellamy, and treasurer Daniel Fasquelle with interim leadership. Ciotti's expulsion was reaffirmed on 14 June via an online meeting to "strengthen the legal basis for the expulsion" with the support of LR's national councilors. Both expulsions were challenged in court through an urgent procedure. The court ruled that the substantive jurisdiction must be seized "within eight days" by "the most diligent party," with the temporary suspension of the expulsion becoming void after this period. These "legal aspects" stemmed from differing interpretations of the party's statutes regarding the president's contested monopoly on convening bodies. On 26 June, the court rejected Ciotti's expulsion a third time.

Call by 700 National Council Members for a Third Expulsion On 18 June, an internal source acknowledged that the votes on 12 and 14 June were legally weak, lacking evidence of national council support. The bureau then gathered signatures from approximately 700 of the 2,300 LR national council members, "more than enough to request in writing, under Article 24.3 of the statutes, that Éric Ciotti convene a political bureau" to expel him. The internal regulations gave him eight days, until midnight on 26 June 2024, to comply. After this deadline passed, the national council members sought judicial appointment of an ad hoc representative to convene the bureau. However, the Paris Judicial Court rejected this request, effectively confirming Éric Ciotti as party president.

Poll Among LR Sympathizers In June 2024, a poll indicated that half of LR "sympathizers" approved of Éric Ciotti's alliance with the RN, though it provided no details on the scope or definition of "sympathizers".

Statements by Aurélien Pradié of The Republicans