French presidential election: the battle between Zemmour and Le Pen gets tougher
Eva Deschamps / January 23, 2022
The fratricidal war is hardening on the far right: Éric Zemmour, on friendly ground in Cannes on Saturday, is continuing with Gilbert Collard his poaching from the RN in an attempt to weaken his presidential rival Marine Le Pen, who is trying to minimize.
The 73-year-old RN MEP and lawyer was expected Saturday evening at the Cannes meeting, where Éric Zemmour concluded his trip to the Alpes-Maritimes. In a coffee at midday, the candidate has already boasted of gathering the people of the right that has been artificially divided for 40 years. Gilbert Collard had suggested his change of stable on Facebook Friday. Other names are also circulating in the RN 78 days before the first round of the presidential election.
he RN MEP Jérôme Rivière and the former member of Génération identitaire, Damien Rieu, already accompanied Éric Zemmour on Friday in Menton.
These defectors have in common, on a line close to Marion Maréchal, to invoke the union of the right, the Catholic identity of France, and to judge that Marine Le Pen has softened in her anti-immigration speech. J. Rivière thus mocked yesterday the small renunciations of Le Pen. She is so obsessed with the second round that she becomes the ultimate variant of the system.
The egos overheat and betrayals bathe in all the Rubicon of bitterness and puerile jealousies, blasted on Twitter Louis Aliot, the RN mayor of Perpignan, remained faithful to the Le Pen camp. The candidate will have the opportunity to react on Sunday, during his appearance on the program Today in Politics on France 3.
Before the rallying of Gilbert Collard, relatively marginalized in the party, Marine Le Pen had minimized the phenomenon.
In the electoral campaigns, there are always some vicissitudes which are moreover the object of an interest inversely proportional to the effect that it has on the voters, she smiled in Fréjus on Thursday.
I know the salami technique of announcing a rallying every day by heart. The Chiraquiens experienced it with Balladur and we experienced it ourselves with Mégret. I think that with Balladur and Mégret it lasted much longer than it will last with Éric Zemmour, she ironized.
Bruno Mégret, for a long time number 2 of the National Front, had split with a part of the leadership in 1998.
His competitor Reconquest! is also showing off the rallies in an attempt to bounce back from a tricky eight-day stretch. His comments on the obsession with the inclusion of disabled children in school caused a riot. Éric Zemmour was also fined 10,000 euros on Monday for inciting hatred, for comments made in 2020 on Cnews about unaccompanied migrant minors. He has appealed.
But the rallies of Le Pen and Zemmour set a trend and Marine Le Pen seems out of breath, thinks a source close to the two campaigns.
E. Zemmour seems on the other hand to have more difficulty in convincing the executives of the Republicans (LR), except for the former number 2 Guillaume Peltier.
Some people are especially concerned about the recomposition after 2022 in case of failure of the two far-right rivals in the presidential election. With in ambush, Marion Maréchal, who had accompanied E. Zemmour in Budapest, but did not express a preference between her aunt Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour.