France | Zemmour criticizes “assistantship” and Le Pen attacks Macron

(Paris) Eric Zemmour criticized Saturday “the assistantship” which according to him promotes immigration, during his second major campaign rally in Lille, his far-right rival Marine Le Pen reserving his attacks in Reims to the quasi-candidate Macron.

While several hundred anti-racist demonstrators demonstrated in the streets of Lille, with some tension and tear gas fire, the far-right candidate, facing 6,000 white-hot supporters at the Grand Palais in Lille, held a speech focused on purchasing power to “give hope” that “labour France expects” according to him.

“Here even more than elsewhere, the assistantship (of social assistance) is an insult”, he lambasted, promising to be “the president who will bring together the entrepreneur and the worker”.

Among several measures that he did not quantify, Eric Zemmour proposes in particular a “zero charge bonus”, paid at the goodwill of the employer, “up to three months of net salary”. A form of extension of the “Prime Macron”, a measure created in 2019 and renewed since. Nearly four million employees received this bonus last year with an average payment of 506 euros.

In the room, his supporters praised the candidate’s “vision” and “new ideas”, faced with “a France in serious danger” in their eyes.

A demonstration of 1100 people opposed to the arrival of the candidate Reconquest! including 200 from the ultra-left, according to the police, took place a little earlier, fraught with tension. The security forces sporadically fired tear gas against several dozen individuals dressed in black. Six people were arrested and a police officer was injured in the hand, according to the authorities.

The demonstrators, like Christian, a 68-year-old pensioner, regretted that “people are deaf or blind” to ideas they consider dangerous.

Another demonstration of 500 people, including the PS mayor of the city Martine Aubry and members of SOS Racisme, had taken place earlier calmly to “say no to hatred”.

” We will win ! »

In a remote duel, Marine Le Pen, whom a latest Ipsos Sopra-Steria poll gives tied with her rival Eric Zemmour (14%) behind Valérie Pécresse (16.5%) and Emmanuel Macron (24%), held to mark its differences, in Reims, with Eric Zemmour, indicating to have a “worked, thoughtful, complete project”.

But she especially attacked Emmanuel Macron, whom she would face in the second round, responsible according to her for the “regression” of a “polytraumatized”, “abandoned” and “wild” France.

In front of 4,000 activists, blue-white-red flags in hand and repeatedly chanting “We’re going to win!” “, the RN candidate called for “breaking the cycle of defeatism” in the face of “an impoverishment of the French” which “is not inevitable” in her eyes.

The only slight incident to note, the irruption of two Femen, shirtless and chanting “Le Pen fascist, not feminist”, quickly controlled by security.

M^me Le Pen wanted to conclude her speech on a more personal note, a rare exercise for her, evoking her career and confessing “to have sometimes failed”, “to have fallen” and “to have always gotten up again”.

Her father Jean-Marie told the JDD on Sunday that she thought that the “image she projects is more positive”, while regretting that she “has dismissed many activists, friends of Marion” Maréchal, her niece, at heart of yet another family quarrel since she recently said she “tipped” in favor of Zemmour.

In the room, Annick, a 58-year-old business manager, says she appreciates Marine Le Pen for “her attachment to our French identity” and an “image of firmness” in the face of a Zemmour “who has no sincerity”.

More than a hundred people had demonstrated earlier to cries “Out the far right, Le Pen, Zemmour & Co” or “R-Haine out”.

“Mistakes of the Left”

On the right, Valérie Pécresse wanted to “restore authority at school” and in particular proposing “the end of the single college” or even “the development of learning”.

Asked by journalists about her possible concerns about being “unplugged” by the PS, during the presentation of her national support committee, Anne Hidalgo (3%) replied tit for tat: “You will get tired before me. You don’t know me well.”

Her rival in the Social Democratic camp, Christiane Taubira, embodies “wokism” and “the wanderings of the left”, according to former Prime Minister Manuel Valls in a column at the JDD. Even if he recognizes her “courage during the debates on marriage for all”, he also castigates her “ideological reversals”, her “ambiguity vis-à-vis republican principles” and a “very egotistical candidacy”.

The former Keeper of the Seals (4%) also at the JDD estimated that since his victory in the popular Primary, he had a “popular mandate to go to the end and bring people together” on the left, conceding however that the situation was “difficult, it is indisputable”.

At Yannick Jadot (8%), 30 citizens “selected by an independent body” will form “the Assembly of possibilities” to work until March 5 on the democracy component of the project that the environmental candidate will carry.

Fabien Roussel (3%), the communist candidate, holds a large rally in Marseille on Sunday afternoon.

In the meantime, the campaign is still suspended on the announcement of Emmanuel Macron’s candidacy, who is expected in Russia on Monday to meet Vladimir Putin and in Kiev on Tuesday to discuss with his Ukrainian counterpart. Something to annoy his opponents who are waiting for him in the countryside.