France Bleu Occitanie receives the twelve presidential candidates or their representatives before the first round, this Sunday. Julien Bacou, departmental delegate of the National Rally in the Tarn and support of Marine Le Pen answered questions from France Bleu Occitanie a few hours before the start of the ballot.
Emmanuel Macron is credited with 26% of voting intentions, your candidate Marine Le Pen would make 23% in the first round, according to a latest poll. Are you calm?
I tend to be wary of polls, as we have seen in particular for regional elections. What is essential is the participation of the French: an election is never decided in advance. And as Marine Le Pen said yesterday (Thursday) in Perpignan, ‘if the people vote, the people win’. We especially hope for a mobilization so as not to have any bad surprises on Sunday.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for insubordinate France, would come in third place with 16%. Who, him or Emmanuel Macron, worries you the most?
Emmanuel Macron is our main adversary, since he is the one who led the policy that has led us to where we have been for five years. But Jean-Luc Mélenchon will certainly benefit from a useful vote on the left since the other candidates, whether Ms. Hidalgo for the PS or Mr. Jadot for the ecologists, are flush with the daisies in the polls. So you also have to be careful. This is why I call once again for mobilization in the rectorate.
Marine Le Pen did not come to the meeting in Toulouse, 4th city in France, where Jean-Luc Mélenchon came first in 2017. It is because she knows that it is lost in advance, here in Toulouse ?
Not necessarily. We aim to speak to all French people. But the schedule was very busy for our candidate. She did a field campaign. Rather, she went to places where the French are not used to seeing political figures. It therefore preferred this field policy.
Eric Zemmour, another far-right candidate, collapsing in the polls: does that relieve you?
I’m not going to say that it relieves me, but it is true that over the course of the campaign, we saw the curves in the polls intersect. And three days before the election, we are in a position of strength. This campaign has not been a long calm river, but the proposals, the serenity and above all the maturity of Marine Le Pen’s candidacy have shown that she is ready to lead our country and to qualify for the second round and then to win on April 24.
Romain Lopez, the mayor of Moissac in Tarn et Garonne, left the RN to join Éric Zemmour. Is it a major loss for the presidential election and especially for the legislative elections that will come after?
It is sure that losing the mayor who managed to win a first city in the former Midi-Pyrenees region is not something pleasant. But to do it one month before the election, I find that a bit surprising. I know Romain Lopez personally and I know that he is a patriot and who will not get the wrong ballot if he has a second round between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
There are other RN defectors to “Reconquest! in your department of Tarn?
Yes, we had. We had a few members of the Rassemblement National who went home, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad ones. I am thinking in particular of people who have not had the expected places on the regional lists, but playing politics on sourness does no good.