The UMP is exactly on the same wavelength

"Mobilize", "explain", "continue reforms": despite the heavy penalty in the first round of the regional against its action, the Prime Minister displays its "determination" to continue the election campaign and to defend its policy against "the cartoon" that in fact according to the Socialist Party. It was yesterday evening in meeting in La Rochelle to support candidate UMP in Poitou-Charentes. He stated that he "would fit" at Matignon. "The France can't know the immobility of the five Socialist years", he added.

Other meetings will be scheduled, especially in Ile-de-France. With each time the same message: the Government has stopped because the reforms have not yet had time to bear fruit and because he not sufficiently explained its action in social matters.

Damage limitation

Ask radars on roads, back people to work, remove a holiday... This is not popular, yet, needed to do so, because no one previously had done, he insists since Sunday night. The UMP is exactly on the same wavelength. "The language of truth and courage we had, as a first step, we know very well that it does not popular", said Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, spokesman for the party yesterday.

Although his fief of Poitou-Charentes has all chances to move to the left and most of the Ministers of his Government are in bad shape, Jean-Pierre Raffarin wants to believe that his future at Matignon is not threatened. He promises to "take account of the French posts and to make decisions that meet both their impatience and their expectations." Hence the importance of the Bill on employment which should be presented in the wake of the regional elections. In the meantime, it is trying to limit the damage for the second round next Sunday, which will be the case if the right to win the Ile-de-France region.

Part of the right-wing Chirac analysis that the President of the Republic will keep as long as possible her Prime Minister. Because no one else is really. And because anyway, the next reform entered the Government calendar of health insurance, will be challenging for the lead.

In this case, the Government would be tightened and strong social connotation. Jean-Louis Borloo, omnipresent on the plateaus of television Sunday night, could take from the stripe and lead a big Department of "social cohesion". Alain Juppe himself estimated Sunday that the lesson of this election was social. The President of the UMP has urged the Government to enhance "cooperation, dialogue, listening, the explanation of the reforms" and "taking into account of the most fragile".

The appetites sharp

Remains that the weakening of the Prime Minister sharpens appetites. Last week, the President of the National Assembly, Jean-Louis Debré, called for the definition of "a new French ambition." Yesterday the Minister of defence, Michèle Alliot-Marie, found that the modernization of the country "was not quite quickly." The Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had lunch yesterday with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, it said nothing publicly, but decided to be ubiquitous during this campaign of Entre-Deux-tours. Knowing that it is in the light of the results of the second round that Jacques Chirac will choose the next Government.