Valérie Pécresse in the context of "François Fillon"

The Republicans (French: Les Républicains [le ʁepyblikɛ̃], LR) is a liberal-conservative political party in France, largely inspired by the tradition of Gaullism. The party was formed in 2015 as the refoundation of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which had been established in 2002 under the leadership of the then-president of France, Jacques Chirac. LR is a member of the Centrist Democrat International and the European People's Party, and sits in the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament.

The UMP used to be one of the two major political parties in the Fifth Republic, along with the centre-left Socialist Party, before being eclipsed by the National Rally and Renaissance. The LR candidate in the 2017 presidential election, former Prime Minister François Fillon, placed third in the first round, with 20.0% of the vote. Following the 2017 legislative election, LR became the second-largest party in the National Assembly, behind President Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche! party (later renamed Renaissance). After a disappointing result in the 2019 European Parliament election, party leader Laurent Wauquiez resigned. He was replaced by Christian Jacob, who remained in office until after the 2022 legislative election, which saw LR lose half of its seats, although it became the kingmaker in a hung parliament. One month before, in the 2022 presidential election, LR nominee Valérie Pécresse placed fifth with 4.7% of the vote. Despite those setbacks, LR was still the largest party in the Senate and headed a plurality of regions of France. Éric Ciotti became president of LR after the 2022 leadership election. In the run-up of the 2024 French legislative election Ciotti came out in favour of an electoral alliance with National Rally. This would have reversed the historic cordon sanitaire that the party had regarding the group. Ciotti was soon removed from his position, which led to a leadership crisis. In May 2025, Bruno Retailleau was elected president of the party.

Éric Ciotti (French: [eʁik sjɔti] or [eʁik tʃɔti] , Italian: [ˈtʃɔtti]; born 28 September 1965) is a French politician who led The Republicans (LR) from 2022 to 2024. He has represented Alpes-Maritimes's 1st constituency in the National Assembly since the 2007 legislative election. Once a member of The Republicans' right-wing, he was seeking to distance the party from Emmanuel Macron's presidency. He left The Republicans in 2024, and is now the leader of the Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party and parliamentary group.

Ciotti briefly served as First Deputy Mayor of Nice under Mayor Christian Estrosi in 2008, before he assumed the presidency of the Departmental Council of Alpes-Maritimes from 2008 to 2017. He sought the party's nomination for the 2022 presidential election at its 2021 congress; he unexpectedly placed first in the first round of voting, but was defeated by centre-right candidate Valérie Pécresse in the second round. In December 2022, following Pécresse's historic loss in the presidential election, he was elected president of The Republicans, placing first in the first round and winning the second round against Senator Bruno Retailleau, with whom he has worked closely since he took office as leader.

Presidential elections were held in France on 10 and 24 April 2022. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held, in which incumbent Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen and was re-elected as President of France. Macron, from La République En Marche! (LREM), had defeated Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, once already in the 2017 French presidential election, for the term which expired on 13 May 2022. It was a rematch of the previous presidential election. Macron became the first president of France to win a re-election bid since Jacques Chirac won in 2002.

In the first round Macron finished first with 28% of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 23%, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise with 22% and Éric Zemmour of Reconquête with 7%. Valérie Pécresse of the Republicans received 5% of the vote and Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and Socialist Party candidate, 2%. Both the Republicans and the Socialists, considered to be the dominant parties until 2017, received their worst results in a presidential election.