Partial legislative election: facing Michel Barnier, Rachida Dati also plans to run in Paris

A warm-up lap before the Paris mayoral campaign? Following the announcement of Michel Barnier's candidacy for the by-election in Paris's 2nd constituency, the Minister of Culture is preparing to challenge the short-lived Prime Minister.

"She called various LR figures to inform them of her intention to run," said two sources from Les Républicains when questioned about the mayor of Paris's 7th arrondissement's intentions to run against her former Prime Minister, who nevertheless belongs to the same party.

"She was very annoyed by the way Michel Barnier announced his candidacy, but also by the reaction of the party which presented the former Prime Minister as "our next MP" on Tuesday evening," added one of the sources consulted.

An argument rejected by an LR leader who doubts that Rachida Dati will run in this partial legislative election scheduled for September, and whose outgoing deputy Jean Laussucq (Macronist group Together for the Republic) was declared ineligible on Friday by the Constitutional Council .

The Paris MP is accused of having paid "campaign expenses using his personal bank account" and of having allowed third parties to pay "directly a significant portion of the expenses incurred for his 2024 election campaign."

"She wants to put pressure on Michel Barnier to withdraw his candidacy," explains this source, who recalls that she had already waged "an atomic war against François Fillon" in 2012, when Nicolas Sarkozy's Prime Minister stood in this same constituency, which stretches along the left bank of the Seine, from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Eiffel Tower. He nevertheless won.

Rachida Dati's entourage gives a different version and suggests that Michel Barnier, from Savoy, was parachuted into Paris. Rachida Dati "has long been committed to her region; she has always defended the fact that Parisians need established elected officials, that Paris is not a region (...) into which one could parachute oneself," this source explained to AFP.

"She will take responsibility for this by-election and will ask to be heard by the Republicans' nomination committee," which must designate the LR candidate for this by-election, she added.

Before his election last year, the ineligible MP, Jean Laussucq, was Rachida Dati's deputy at the 7th arrondissement mayoralty. He had secured the nomination of Renaissance at the expense of the incumbent MP, Gilles Le Gendre, despite being a long-time "walker."