The far right has made TikTok its preferred barometer of the European election. When the National Rally (RN) is jubilant to see its head of list, Jordan Bardella, pass the million subscriber mark on the favorite social network of adolescents, the management of Reconquête! is concerned about the comments read under the videos of his candidate, Marion Maréchal. Most users discover that Marine Le Pen’s niece has returned to politics. Many more learn that she joined Eric Zemmour’s party, joining in March 2022. Only the most informed know that the former MP is in the running for the June 9 election.
The most optimistic of Reconquête executives! see, smiling, a “good room for improvement” between now and the polls. But many, in the entourage of the former elected National Front (FN) and even more in that of the identity polemicist, are beginning to worry about a campaign carried out under the radar, in the shadow of the dynamic which carries Jordan Bardella far ahead in the polls. “The electoral offer has not yet been assimilated by public opinion”euphemizes Nicolas Bay, the party’s last MEP, and fourth on a list whose headliner was nevertheless made official at the beginning of September.
At campaign headquarters, rented in opulent 8e district, everyone swears that the campaign is going as planned. “We are still in the process of installing an application”, the leaders repeat in unison. As before the 2022 presidential election, the gray eminences of Reconquête! scrutinize in polls that are nevertheless very gloomy the signs of a momentum that no journalist or analyst would, according to them, have the talent to note. As for Eric Zemmour, the difficulties are set up as wills: if Marion Maréchal’s trips only receive a relative response, this would only be due to the wish of his team to target the local press and not to invite journalists from Paris.
Second rank duel
But with less than four months to go before the deadline, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter fails to impose the slightest subject in the debate and seems condemned to position herself tirelessly in reaction to Jordan Bardella, who was quicker, for example, to declare in January against the European Free Trade Union to defend French farmers.
“The match is not with the National Rally, the only match of these Europeans is to know who will represent the right in the future, both on economic and identity issuespredicted Marion Maréchal in December. A right of compromise and inconsistency? An authentic right? » Her first major campaign meeting is approaching (March 10 at the Palais des sports in Paris), and the former elected official from Vaucluse remains stuck in a second-tier duel against the candidate nominated by Les Républicains (LR), François-Xavier Bellamy .
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