Reconquest! is a master in the art of false suspense. After Eric Zemmour’s seamless presidential candidacy in 2022, then the inevitable rallying of Marion Maréchal in the aftermath, the kingpin of the far-right party, Sarah Knafo, made official on Friday April 26 what There had been little doubt for weeks: his participation in the European elections. The advisor and companion of the former journalist Figaro will occupy – as expected – third place on the list led by the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, during the vote on June 9.
The one who often modeled herself on the influential Marie-France Garaud, eminence grise of Georges Pompidou and pygmalion of Jacques Chirac, did not resist the light for long. Two years after leading Eric Zemmour’s presidential campaign, the former magistrate at the Court of Auditors is coming out of the shadows to try to prevent his young party from sinking during the European election. Six weeks before the vote, Reconquest! stagnates painfully above the fateful 5% mark, condemned for the moment to watch the National Rally (RN) candidate, Jordan Bardella, soar to the top of the opinion polls.
Unsurprisingly, the thirty-year-old took care to scratch this rival in her first interview as a candidate, published Friday April 26 in Le Figaro. Basically, she first distinguishes the supposed constancy of her movement – “very high in courage” – faced with the convolutions of that of Marine Le Pen – “very high in the polls” : “The RN makes its decisions based on the mood of the day, the polls from the day before, the media story. »
Then the enarch describes at length Jordan Bardella in “conjuror”, in reference to the dissolution of the National Assembly which he planned to demand from Emmanuel Macron in the event of victory. “He makes people believe that the next three years do not exist, that thanks to him Emmanuel Macron will leave power on the morning of June 10. Except that Emmanuel Macron will always be there, and for three years”notes Sarah Knafo.
Avoid defeat and disappearance
Dreaming of itself for more than ten years as the pivot of the “union of the rights”, the latter therefore leaves the scenes to bombard Mr. Bardella, one of the main representatives of the far-right camp, where we gather around of the fight against immigration, the application of “national preference” and the defense of a French identity threatened by the opening of borders. His great ambition, nourished on the benches of Sciences Po and during his journey alongside numerous sovereignists (Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Henri Guaino, Philippe de Villiers), gives way to a short-term electoral priority: avoiding a rout of Reconquest! to the Europeans, which could lead to its disappearance. To achieve this, she is trying to contain the flow of votes into the hands of the RN.
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