Designated Wednesday head of the Reconquest list! for the European elections in June, Marion Maréchal must now convince of her political future, eight years after her defeat in the regional elections and her departure in the wake of the National Rally.
This was to be the image of her return to the electoral fight: an interview on the set of TF1’s 8:00 p.m. news to announce that she will be number one on the list. Alas: a few minutes before, Eric Zemmour took the lead in an interview with Le Figaro, specifying that he had “decided” to entrust him with this responsibility – an initiative “perfectly coordinated” between the two, we swear at Reconquête.
The former MP for Vaucluse in any case wanted to assert herself: while her boss equates the ballot with a “referendum on immigration”, Ms. Maréchal assured that “no, it won’t be just that”, announcing in passing that Eric Zemmour “will be our natural candidate, of course, for the 2027 elections”, until then a simple hypothesis.
The two must anyway speak this weekend in front of several thousand activists during the party’s summer university, in Gréoux-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence).
Beyond that, it is the political future of Marion Maréchal that these European elections seem to question, after a real-false cure of political abstinence which has sometimes proven to be erratic.
The granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen had nevertheless earned her stripes from the day she entered the Palais Bourbon in 2012, at the age of 22, the youngest MP in the French Republic.
A defeat in the regional elections in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur in 2015, his refusal to compete again in the legislative elections in 2017, then his withdrawal from political life to devote himself to opening a school in Lyon ( the “diplomas” issued there have never been recognized by any university) ended up sowing doubt as to its true intentions. She has also long repeated that she only wants to be interested in “metapolitics”, or the “cultural battle” which must impose “ideas” before devoting herself to that of the ballot box.
Once presented as the putative runner-up to her aunt Marine Le Pen, she finally assumed the role of becoming her rival by supporting Eric Zemmour in the 2022 presidential election. This first return to the arena, presented as the boot from Nevers of the ex- polemicist to weaken the RN and take advantage of the far right, had in fact proved futile.
Two years later, Marion Maréchal remains facing a building site. Objective of the Europeans: “To bring together right-wing voters around a great civilizational battle to defend our identity, our culture, our values ??threatened by migratory overwhelm and Islamization”, she said on TF1 .
Champion of the “union of the rights”, reputed to be economically liberal, conservative in morals but less anti-EU than the Lepenist doxa, Marion Maréchal openly targets the LR electorate, while Reconquête! and the right-wing party are currently on the verge of voting intentions, around 7%.
However, it is this same strategy of seducing supporters of the ex-RPR that Jordan Bardella, head of the RN list for the June election, seems to want to adopt, who is already at the top of the polls.
“It is Marion who will have to position herself in relation to us, not the opposite: we do not play in the same category,” notes a strategist from the National Rally.
“But we want those who voted Zemmour for the presidency to say to themselves that it is in their interest now to be on the side of the winners, that is to say us, so it is not in our interest to hit them. , and neither do they”, continues the same source, while we confirm in private a “non-aggression pact” approved by the one who succeeded Marine Le Pen at the head of the party and the niece of the unfortunate candidate for the Elysée.
Ms. Maréchal swears “not wanting to go on personal grounds”, recognizing that she “could never be a candidate against Marine Le Pen”. A way to recognize the limits of one’s ambitions?
On June 9, her political future could suddenly darken if she recorded a score lower than that of her mentor in the presidential election (7.07%) or, worse, if she did not exceed the 5% mark necessary to send elected in Strasbourg.
A performance would, on the contrary, open up other horizons, starting with the succession of Eric Zemmour.
07/09/2023 17:58:15 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
