Conservative Valerie Pecresse, aiming to become the first woman president in France

One of the candidates expected to pose a serious challenge to incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is conservative Valerie Pecresse, who aims to become the first woman president in France.

Fifteen years ago, Valerie Pecresse ended a student protest for reform at her university using the same policy of combining consensus and reformist courage that she believes will now help secure the French presidency.

Elected to run by members of the conservative Les Republicains party last month, opinion polls suggest Pecresse could defeat President Emmanuel Macron in the April election. If she succeeds, she will become the first woman to head the French state.

At her campaign headquarters in Paris’s 17th luxury district, the walls are adorned with movie posters, including one by Yoda, which she calls a charm for good luck.

Pecresse, 54, made a list of the difficulties France faces, which show its social and fiscal conservatism: poor control of national borders, violence in city ghettos and rising debts.

“We need to restore order, both on our roads and in our national accounts,” she told Reuters.

A minister of higher education and then budget, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, Pecresse said last week that troubled neighborhoods where the state had lost authority and where lawlessness prevailed would need to be cleared.

Criticizing President Macron for “burning the state coffers” during the pandemic, Pecresse has promised to reform France’s generous pension system and cut a bloated public wage bill – both promises she says Macron has failed to deliver. meet.

Precresse describes her style as a combination of Merkel and Thatcher.

“I am a woman who consults, decides and acts. “I have similarities with Thatcher in the part where I say I am not in favor of going back,” he said, referring to a phrase in a speech in 1980 when Britain’s conservative leader refused to back down on liberal reforms.

Pecresse noted the cutting of hundreds of jobs in her office to pave the way for increased staffing in high schools and cuts in spending. In 2020, she won a second term to run the large Paris region.

Opponents who have nicknamed her “blonde” have paid the price, she said.

Her party, which originated with politician Charles de Gaulle, dominated French politics for most of the post-war era. But since Macron reshaped the political landscape in 2017, she has struggled to unite center-right and conservative factions.

Opinion polls show her in a close race with Marine Le Pen, leader of the traditional far right. Polls suggest she would be Macron’s most dangerous opponent.

Born in a wealthy Paris neighborhood and educated at France’s elite ENA university for politicians and civil servants, Pecresse is moderate in a conservative party.

Pecresse has sharpened her language on immigration and identity, seeking to neutralize the threat from Le Pen, whose promise to “save France” from Islam has polarized France.

She says she will end the automatic right of French citizenship for French-born foreigners and toughen court sentences in countries where police have lost control.

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