Marion Maréchal and Reconquest! play big

Marion Maréchal, head of the Reconquest list! for Europeans, will participate in her first election as a candidate for the party led by Éric Zemmour. The objective is not only to cross the fateful 5% threshold but also to move ahead of Les Républicains.

The stakes for Marion Maréchal, guest of “Demain l’Europe”, Thursday April 11 on franceinfo, and for her Reconquête party! in the next European election is to pass in front of LR. It would in fact be a political big bang. For the moment in the polls of voting intentions, the Republicans often have a slight advantage but nothing is done. Hence the numerous attacks by Marion Maréchal targeting François Xavier Bellamy, the head of the LR list in an attempt to‘”strive” his voters, that’s the word used by those close to Marion Maréchal.

The former MP keeps repeating that the Republicans are right-wing in name only when she is the proponent of “an authentic right”. We are a long way from the 2022 campaign when Éric Zemmour wanted to rise to the level of the National Rally to supplant it. The ambition is much more modest today but the stakes remain high: a recomposition of the right.

First vote since the presidential election

These Europeans represent first and foremost for Reconquest! a national issue. This is the case, let’s not be fooled, for all the parties in the race. This is the first election since the 2022 election of Emmanuel Macron and everyone wants to gauge their strength at home. But for Reconquête!, it is even clearer and Marion Maréchal brings everything back, as soon as she can, to national questions, and in particular immigration. Europe is incidental. If Frexit is not a campaign argument, it is almost the same as the European Union is at least ignored, at worst discredited both in its functioning and in its foundations. Éric Zemmour does not hide his admiration for the first defender of Brexit, the party of the British Nigel Farrage, whom he also met.

For Marion Maréchal, this election also marks a positioning issue in relation to the former journalist. This is her first election as a representative of Reconquest!. So she plays big. Press articles have recently reported very tense relations between her and Éric Zemmour. They would no longer speak to each other, according to point. Both denied it. Recognizing it would in any case be explosive just two months before the election: internal bickering which would suit the Republicans’ affairs well.

Éric Ciotti feared a candidacy from Éric Zemmour more. Marion Maréchal, predicts one of those close to the leader of the LR, will end up moving away from her current mentor to return home, to her aunt. We’re not there yet, but it’s clear that the survival of Reconquest depends on the score in the Europeans! and therefore the political future of Éric Zemmour but also of the woman who could have been a runner-up: Marion Maréchal. Behind the Republicans or below the fateful 5% mark, big storm warnings.