By-election: Rachida Dati engages in a standoff with Les Républicains ahead of the Paris municipal elections

As veterans of psychodramas, Les Républicains (LR) know better than most how to mimic composure and serenity. Entering and leaving the National Investiture Commission (CNI), convened by the party late Monday afternoon, July 28, the few officials who agreed to speak swore that everything was going well and that their movement was, more than ever, capable of winning the next two elections in the capital: the legislative by-election in the second constituency, scheduled before mid-October, and the municipal elections in March 2026.

In a room in a charmless building in the ^15th arrondissement of Paris, LR nevertheless enriched its history with a new tragic play. Carrying out the threat brandished for several weeks, Rachida Dati monopolized the beginning of the meeting to confirm that she would run for the legislative elections , organized after the ineligibility declared on July 11 by the Constitutional Council against the incumbent Jean Laussucq (Renaissance).

It doesn't matter if LR intends to invest former Prime Minister Michel Barnier – which the CNI officially confirmed, after the rapid departure of Rachida Dati, without a word to the press. The Minister of Culture had previously transmitted to the newspaper Le Parisien the content of her declaration to the party: she will seek a seat in the National Assembly " whatever happens " to thwart the "parachuting" of her former head of government, plotted by "those who want to prevent [her] from winning [the municipal elections] " .

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