Pspokesperson for Marine Le Pen’s campaign, Laurent Jacobelli indicated, Wednesday, February 16, that the “rotten fruits fall” from the National Rally. A reaction to the departures from the party, where Nicolas Bay, a leading member also tempted by Éric Zemmour, was dismissed from his post. “We are united around Marine Le Pen. Shaking a tree so that the rotten fruits fall is ultimately always a good thing, it regenerates vitality, ”argued on RMC Laurent Jacobelli, a former activist from Debout la France who joined the RN in 2017.
The president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, again minimized these departures: “It is not a bloodletting” but “a dozen” people out of a thousand elected officials. About Nicolas Bay, “there is a form of loyalty to be had. We cannot be in a form of sabotage which aims to serialize his departure, ”he said on France Inter. Three MEPs – Jérôme Rivière, Gilbert Collard and Maxette Pirbakas – have joined the candidate Reconquête! of Éric Zemmour, followed on Sunday by the only RN senator, Stéphane Ravier, as well as several regional advisers.
READ ALSOPresidential: Nicolas Bay, spokesperson for the RN, suspended from office
“A Stalinist perfume”
Nicolas Bay, MEP and member of the executive office (management), who plans to join the far-right candidate, was suspended from office by the RN on Tuesday. The party accuses him of “sabotage” for having transmitted information to Marine Le Pen’s rival, which he denies. Without naming him, Marine Le Pen had on Tuesday “asked those who operate the slug strategy to please speed up their departures (…) because the slug is slow but also sticky”.
Laurent Jacobelli welcomed a “precautionary measure” because we “cannot keep a mole inside (the) team” and “we knew that he (Nicolas Bay) was negotiating his departure “. “We have to stop the ridicule a little” with “espionage”, retorted Jérôme Rivière on France Info. Marine Le Pen “seeks to change the electorate, to change parties”, and she “gives up on immigration, on social issues”. The candidate “fires people because she knows that after this defeat we will have to manage a small party”, judged the MEP.
Still on France Info, Robert Ménard, mayor of Béziers, deplored this split within the party: “I am very good friends with Nicolas Bay, whom I like a lot and for whom I have a lot of esteem, but who should be frank of the necklace. A month ago he should have said he was joining Éric Zemmour. On the other hand, there is a whole rhetoric: “espionage”, “traitor”, which has a Stalinist flavor. All of this makes no sense. It will be necessary, for this camp of the right of the right, to meet the day after April 10. They will have to agree for the second round. “According to BFMTV, Nicolas Bay will soon file a complaint for defamation.
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