The city of Reims is popular with the candidates for the supreme investiture. After Jean-Luc Mélenchon last October, Marine Le Pen will hold her presidential convention there on January 15 and 16, 2022. Reims, a strategic city?
It’s official ! A presidential convention will take place at the Reims exhibition center on January 15 and 16. At National Gathering, it is indicated that regional stands, thematic stands, and a major speech by Marine Le Pen are planned. The candidate of the National Rally knows the Grand Est well, since, for several years, she made her political comeback in Brachay a small village in Haute-Marne. It is also in this town that she achieved her best score, in the first round of the 2017 presidential election, with 83.72% of the vote. In the second round, she had gathered 90.24% of the vote. For the election of April 10 and 24, 2022, it is the city of Reims, which will bring together its supporters to start the real sprint of this presidential year.
In the second round of the 2017 presidential election, Marine Le Pen achieved a score of 42.06% of the vote in the whole of the Grand Est. The region is therefore not by far the most hostile to his proposals. In the Marne, the candidate thus achieved good scores, arriving first with 28.02% of the votes in the first round then totaling 44.99% of the votes in the second. In Reims, on the other hand, his scores simply remained in line with those obtained at the national level with 21.9% in the first round and 33.13% in the second round.
So why put Reims on the front of the stage? If Laurent Jacobelli, regional councilor for the Grand Est and spokesperson for the National Rally indicates that the geographical location of the city played a role in the decision to organize the presidential convention there, he adds: “Reims resonates in the history of France. It is a historic city. This shows our anchoring of the countryside, and the intention to be anchored in history, civilization. During the convention, we will address all the themes of the presidential election: purchasing power, strategic state, but also sovereign issues. “
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For Olivier Dupéron, professor of public law, at the University of Reims and deputy director of Law and Territory Research Center, “It has been a few years since Reims has become an important city, politically. In 2008, the 75th Congress of the Socialist Party was organized there, a very important moment in the life of this party, and in terms of national issues “. At that time, when Adeline Hazan (PS) was mayor of Reims, the congress ended with the election of Martine Aubry.
The academic considers, moreover, that “Reims remains a land to be conquered, given the results obtained in the past by Marine Le Pen. But, it is also, in a way, a town in the countryside. A big city in a rural territory, where the vote for the candidate of the National Rally is highOlivier Dupéron also underlines that Reims is confronted with urban phenomena of delinquency. He even wonders about the use which could be made of the attack of which was the victim a journalist of the daily Union, in the district of Croix -Rouge, in February 2021.
The professor does not neglect the symbolic dimension of the city of coronations either. “It is easier to imagine a speech around coming to seek a coronation in Reims. As well as Joan of Arc, a reference to the history which refers to the Ancien Régime, which brings to its electorate, and which can echo Eric Zemmour, who presents himself as a historian sometimes, whereas he does not ‘is not”.
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If Olivier Dupéron recognizes that Front National and Rassemblement National have never fully broken through in Reims, he also indicates that the personality and positioning of the mayor of Reims, Arnaud Robinet, must be taken into account. “He is a personality that matters, and who accompanies Edouard Philippe in his approach to support Emmanuel Macron (Arnaud Robinet joined the Horizons party, created in October 2021 by the former Prime Minister). It is understandable that this political formation will have a vocation to play an important role in the future majority, if there is a future majority. It also means that it is coming to a political field which is that of the majority, a center, center-right majority, ex-Republicans. ”
Coming third in the City of Coronations during the first round of the 2017 presidential election, with 20.3% of the vote, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate La France rebellious also wanting to embody the opposition to Emmanuel Macron, has moreover also chose this land anchored to the right to launch his campaign, in October 2021. The time, there too, of a two-day convention, of the Popular Union, he held there a big meeting closing, in front of 2,000 people, at the exhibition center.
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The start of the campaign, in the city of coronations. This can therefore make you dream of a future coronation, at the polls. Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon may have thought about it. Other candidates could be seduced by the idea of a big meeting in Reims. Until then, it remains to obtain from elected officials the 500 sponsorships necessary to introduce themselves.
As for Marine Le Pen, she does not only have good memories in Reims. In 2017, two days before the second round of the presidential election, she came to visit Notre-Dame Cathedral. She had come out, under the boos, through a back door of the Tau Palace, which adjoins the cathedral.
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