Éric Ciotti

Éric Ciotti (, ; born 28 September 1965) is a French politician who has led the Gaullist The Republicans (LR) party since 2022.

He has represented the 1st constituency of the Alpes-Maritimes department in the National Assembly since the 2007 legislative election.

He is a member of his party's right-wing, seeking to distance it from Emmanuel Macron's presidency.

Ciotti was elected to the National Assembly during the 2007 election; he was reelected in 2012 and 2017.

In Parliament, Ciotti has been serving on the Committee on Legal Affairs since 2007.

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 with since he took office as leader.

Ciotti was elected to the General Council of Alpes-Maritimes in 2008 in Saint-Martin-Vésubie following the resignation of incumbent councillor Gaston Franco.

He was elected by his peers to the body's presidency the same year, succeeding Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi.

Ciotti had previously failed to be elected in the canton of Nice-1 in the 2008 cantonal election, having been defeated by incumbent Socialist Marc Concas.

Ahead of the UMP's 2012 leadership election, Ciotti managed François Fillon's campaign.

When Fillon's opponent Jean-François Copé eventually won, Ciotti was one of more than 50 party members who threatened to form a new centre-right caucus within the UMP parliamentary group under the leadership of Fillon.

In September 2014, Ciotti joined Fillon, Étienne Blanc, Pierre Lellouche and Valérie Pécresse on an official trip to Iraq.

Following the 2015 departmental election, in which he was elected in Tourrette-Levens, the Departmental Council of Alpes-Maritimes replaced the General Council of Alpes-Maritimes.

Ahead of The Republicans' 2016 primaries, Ciotti managed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign for the presidential nomination, alongside Catherine Vautrin.

Also in 2016, he formally requested that prosecutors investigate President François Hollande over a potential breach of security allowing revelations that Hollande disclosed classified information to journalists.

After the adoption of a new law organising cumul des mandats restrictions, Ciotti resigned the presidency in 2017 while keeping his councillor mandate.

Since 2017, he has also been a quaestor and therefore part of the Assembly's Bureau in the 15th legislature of the French Fifth Republic, under the leadership of president Richard Ferrand.

He recently recognized having had an affair with Nadine Morano while in office.

Amid the Fillon affair, Ciotti succeeded Gérald Darmanin as deputy of the Republicans' secretary general Bernard Accoyer and subsequently became a vocal defender of Fillon as the party's candidate for the 2017 presidential election.

When magistrates put Fillon under formal investigation on suspicion of embezzling state funds, Ciotti publicly state "I trust and support Francois Fillon more than ever".

When Fillon called on members to vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the election against Marine Le Pen, Ciotti refused to endorse Macron.

In The Republicans' 2017 leadership election, Ciotti endorsed Laurent Wauquiez.

In 2018, Wauquiez included him in his shadow cabinet; in this capacity, he served as opposition counterpart to Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner.

In 2019, Ciotti successfully added an amendment to an education bill to make it mandatory for classrooms to display both a French and European Union flag in all classrooms.

In 2020, Ciotti became the Parliament's rapporteur on how the government handled the COVID-19 pandemic in France.

In 2021, Ciotti announced his intention to run as The Republicans's candidate in the 2022 presidential election.

Ciotti narrowly placed first at the 2021 The Republicans congress and proceeded to the primary second round, in which he was defeated by Valérie Pécresse.

À DROITE! (ÀD!), also called Droits, (English: To the Right!), is a French movement within The Republicans.

The movement was founded by Ciotti during the 2021 The Republicans congress.

Ciotti was elected with 53.7% of the votes against his main opponent, Bruno Retailleau, who received 46.3% to become the next leader of The Republicans.

He ruled out a formal alliance with Macron's minority government in parliament, although he was open to negotiate a pension reform.

Ciotti has largely been described as right-wing and of belonging in the populist faction of The Republicans.

In 2020, Ciotti proposed a bill to the National Assembly which would prohibit the dissemination of images depicting functions of the national police, municipal police, military and customs officers; with a maximum penalty of 15,000 euros and a year in prison for violators.

For the Marianne magazine, Éric Ciotti joined Marine Le Pen's positions on security, identity, immigration and Islamism, sharing with her "an ethnic and identity-based vision of the nation".

He thus proposes to change the nationality code in order to abolish the jus soli in favour of the jus sanguinis alone, to include in the Constitution "our Christian origins", as well as to accentuate security policies (creation of 100,000 additional prison places, lowering of the criminal majority to 16 years, suppression of family allowances to "parents of children who do not respect the values of the Republic").

He seems to adhere to the Great Replacement theory; in 2021, he stated "our society is changing, if we have to talk about 'great replacement', I talk about 'replacement'".

In 2021, he stated that "what differentiates [The Republicans] from the National Rally is our capacity to govern. In the face of Islamic terrorism, he advocated the creation of a "French-style Guantanamo" and the adoption of "specially adapted laws, like the Patriot Act in the United States.

In September of 2021, Ciotti declared that if the second round of the French presidential election ended up being between Emmanuel Macron and Éric Zemmour, he would vote for the latter.