PARIS—Valerie Pecresse, who has described herself as “one-third Thatcher, two-thirds Merkel,” has won the French conservative Les Republicains (LR) ticket for the 2022 presidential election and will now aim to thwart Emmanuel Macron’s reelection bid.
Opinion polls have so far shown the 54-year-old head of the Paris Ile-de-France region winning about 11 percent of the votes at best in next April’s election, giving her little chance of making it to a second-round runoff, let alone winning it.
