France's conservative party faces a moment of truth Tuesday with a final debate among candidates hoping to affront President Emmanuel Macron as well as a growing far-right threat in a presidential election just four months away.
For the Republicans (LR), who have been wrangling over the choice since last spring, the official entry expected later Tuesday of far-right pundit Eric Zemmour into the ring raises the stakes even further.
With both Zemmour and veteran far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the contest, the Republicans will see how attractive their traditional platforms of security and pro-business policies remain with French voters.
Tuesday's prime-time debate from 2000 GMT on France 2 television will be the last of four among the five contenders for the candidacy, before a two-round vote by party members this week and a winner announced Saturday.
All the candidates have tried to dismiss Zemmour's meteoric rise and his bid to woo rightwing voters, with polls showing him outpacing any Republican rival -- though still trailing both Macron and Le Pen.
"It's a question of sincerity... I trust the French people," Xavier Bertrand, long considered the front-runner for the Republican investiture, told BFM television on Tuesday.
The former insurance executive accused Zemmour of inflammatory diatribes on immigration and Islam that would only widen social divides, but "the best way to reconcile the French is with justice, to bring everyone back together".
The presidential hopefuls among France's Republicans party, from left: Michel Barnier, Valerie Pecresse, Eric Ciotti, Xavier Bertrand and Philippe Juvin. Photo: AFP / JULIEN DE ROSA
Yet many in the Republican base have not forgotten that Bertrand, who was labour and health minister under president Nicolas Sarkozy, quit the party after Macron's election, accusing it of embracing extremist far-right tropes.
That was also the case for Valerie Pecresse, who is seeking the candidacy by playing up her "competence" in running the greater Paris region, where she handily won re-election this year.
As a woman she stands out among the other Republican candidates, including Michel Barnier, the European Union's former Brexit negotiator, who is betting that party loyalty will endear him with activists.
But Eric Ciotti, the law-and-order candidate who has called for a French "Guantanamo" prison for Islamist terror suspects, appears to have benefitted from growing interest in line with Zemmour's rise.
The outsider is Philippe Juvin, a doctor and mayor of a Paris suburb who gained prominence during the Covid outbreak, who has pledged to put revitalised public services at the heart of his campaign.
Yet a surge in party ranks to nearly 150,000 members in recent weeks adds a further element of uncertainty, since it remains unclear who the recent adherents will vote for.
Macron's centre-right platform has also siphoned away conservatives, though progressive social programmes such as allowing fertility treatments for lesbian couples and single women have alienated France's bloc of traditional Catholic voters.
