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. With nearly 61 percent of the votes in a runoff, Pecresse beat right-winger Eric Ciotti for the LR ticket, the party said after a primary that was a test of whether it would remain anchored in its centre-right tradition or lurch to the right. “We are going to restore France’s pride and protect the French,” Pecresse said at the party’s headquarters shortly after the results were announced. Pecresse can potentially appeal to the …