His team presents the long-awaited arrival of Marion Maréchal, niece of his rival Marine Le Pen and former FN deputy from Vaucluse, as a “turning point”.
For Nicolas Bay, former leading member of the RN, who joined Reconquête a few weeks ago!, Marion Maréchal “can reassure the electorate of LR” and “raise reluctance” among women, less willing than men to vote for the former CNews columnist.
Marion Maréchal must speak as well as Stéphane Ravier and Guillaume Peltier “to illustrate the union of the rights”.
Hard blow for Marine Le Pen
If Marine Le Pen largely anticipated this rallying of which she herself broke the effect of surprise by mentioning it at the end of January before saying she was “convinced”, the blow is hard.
At the end of January, Marine Le Pen had judged “brutal, violent”, that her niece was thinking of joining Eric Zemmour in the race for the Elysée, insisting on the “personal aspect” of their relationship, saying with emotion to have ” brought up with (her) sister during the first years of her life”.
On the political level, Marine Le Pen repeats at will that Marion Maréchal had said that she would support the best placed between Eric Zemmour and her. However, Marine Le Pen is clearly ahead of the former Cnews columnist in the polls and given in the second round against President Emmanuel Macron.
“Poor Marion has been transformed into a kind of lifeline for a campaign that is collapsing in on itself,” Marine Le Pen said on Saturday before a meeting in Aigues-Mortes (Gard).
The former polemicist tries to find a dynamic after a delicate sequence on the conflict in Ukraine. His opponents reproach him for his remarks deemed pro-Russian or his preference for Ukrainian refugees to be welcomed in Poland rather than in France.
There was an internal “discussion” about refugees. “There are no substantive differences,” says a manager. “It’s on the shape, it could have been a little more rounded”.
Jean-Luc Melenchon in Lyon
On the other side of the political spectrum, the rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, supported by the Popular Primary after the abandonment of Christiane Taubira and who remains largely at the head of a struggling left, also wants to make people forget that he had to recognize the “error” of having deemed the Russian attack on Ukraine impossible.
He was also targeted by his environmentalist competitors Yannick Jadot and socialist Anne Hidalgo who were present at the big Parisian demonstration on Saturday for Ukraine.
They attributed to him complacency vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin and criticized his opposition to the delivery of arms to the Ukrainians, a position shared by Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon has also suffered boos during the debate before the National Assembly on Tuesday on the subject.
In the desire to discuss with Putin, “there is in Mélenchon, anti-American, the principle that the enemies of my enemies are my friends”, analyzes a figure of the rebellious galaxy.
Can the sequence dissuade the electorate likely to vote “useful”? MP Alexis Corbière wants to be “optimistic” and assures that the Lyon meeting will remove doubts: “Jean-Luc Mélenchon will offer a geopolitical vision”.
His colleagues Adrien Quatennens or Eric Coquerel posted videos on social networks to call for filling the crowd expected on Sunday on the Lyon esplanade of the Gros Caillou.
The objective is to reconnect with the spectacular images of the candidate’s outdoor meetings in 2017 and the “demonstrations of force”, as Mr. Mélenchon likes to call them.
There is no doubt that he will criticize, like the other competitors, the results of Emmanuel Macron, now a candidate but accused of letting the international crisis evade the debate of the campaign.
On Saturday, the right-wing candidate Valérie Précresse, at a meeting in Metz, denounced a report by the Head of State in the form of a “filing for bankruptcy” with a “safe Waterloo”.
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