No “NUPES” far-right version. This Friday, Jordan Bardella once again ruled out the idea of joining forces with Reconquest to expand the group of sovereignist deputies who will be elected next June. In the first round of the presidential election, “Marine Le Pen arrived ahead of Éric Zemmour in 96% of the constituencies”, justifies the interim president of the National Rally (RN) at the microphone of France Info. 93.2% to be exact, Éric Zemmour having come before the MP for Pas-de-Calais in 39 out of 577 constituencies, most of them in Ile-de-France, but also in all of those of French people living abroad .
The fact remains that “with 7% in the presidential election, you generally make 2-3-4% in the legislative elections”, analyzes Jordan Bardella. “You always have a very big loss and in truth, Éric Zemmour is not able to qualify in any constituency in the second round”, he continues, relying (perhaps) on the fall of the National Front between the presidential and legislative elections in 2017 (from 21.3% in the first round of presidential elections to 13.2% in the first round of legislative elections) and 2012 (from 17.9% to 13.6%).
“Eric Zemmour was an obstacle”
How far away this “great coalition of rights and patriots” that Reconquest demanded in a press release on the evening of the re-election of Emmanuel Macron… immediately swept away by the RN.
“The National Rally wants the death of Reconquest”, lamented Eric Zemmour on BFM TV on Monday. “The French who listen to this are laughing because for eight months they have seen Éric Zemmour do everything to try to kill the National Rally, to prevent us from reaching the second round, even if it means qualifying Jean-Luc Mélenchon in our place, mocks Jordan Bardella . Éric Zemmour was an obstacle. »
It is also the fault of the little phrases that punctuated the presidential campaign and raised the tension between the two candidates. “On the evening of the second round, Eric Zemmour attacks Marine Le Pen, explaining that this is the 8th time that defeat has struck Le Pen’s name, when we know that it is perhaps one of the names that has done the most to defend national ideas for 50 years, denounces Jordan Bardella. It is extremely offensive, deeply inelegant. “And the interested party to implore the fact that” in a campaign, we say rather unpleasant things to each other “. “She said I had Nazis around me!” “defends the former polemicist, who described his opponent as” leftist woman out of step with her electorate “last October.
As a result, unlike the left and Macronie who are united, Reconquest will compete well with the National Rally in 550 constituencies, with 159 candidates from the RN, as stated in a press release published on Tuesday. Jordan Bardella recalls that his party “presents 577 candidates everywhere, but does not exclude, in the second round, if we were not to be qualified in the triangular, to bring our support to the camp of the patriot candidate best placed to take it away”.
An RN candidate facing Zemmour?
In this respect, Reconquête will not present a candidate against Éric Ciotti (1st district of the Alpes-Maritimes), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (8th district of Essonne) and… Marine Le Pen (11th district of Pas-de -Calais), who will have to come out of his post-defeat silence to return to the campaign. No gentlemen’s agreement on the other hand on the side of the RN: if the party does not put any candidate against Nicolas Dupont-Aignan – who called to vote Marine Le Pen on the evening of the first round – Éric Zemmour will not be entitled to this same preferential treatment if he is a candidate, said Sébastien Chenu, spokesperson for the RN.
The decision of the former CNews columnist on this subject should not take long to be known. “I have several constituencies in mind where I scored above 20%, he confided on Monday. The Var for example, or Paris, we’ll see! The decision is imminent.” In reality, Éric Zemmour exceeded this 20% in only one constituency, the 8th of the French abroad. It is then effectively in the 4th district of Paris that he achieves his second best score (16.81%). His best result in the Var leveled off, in the 4th constituency, at 14.61%. In the latter, Marine Le Pen also collected 32.16% of the votes cast in the first round.