Éric Zemmour, president of the far-right Reconquête! party, was eliminated in the first round of the legislative elections in the Var, after coming third, with 23.19% of the votes cast behind outgoing LREM deputy Sereine Mauborgne (28.51% ) and RN Philippe Lottiaux (24.74%).
According to complete figures from the Var prefecture, the ex-journalist, fourth in the presidential election with around 7% of the vote, was beaten by 801 votes by the candidate of the National Rally. In the Reconquest! camp, the mayor of Cogolin, where the far-right candidate had organized his election evening on Sunday evening, acknowledged this defeat to AFP.
Eric Zemmour preceded by 801 votes by the RN
Eric Zemmour himself came to acknowledge his failure shortly after 9:00 p.m. “The results are not up to our expectations but we have just put up a flag in each district of France”, declared Mr. Zemmour in front of numerous cameras and media and a hundred sympathizers gathered in the center of Cogolin, commune of 11,300 inhabitants near Saint-Tropez.
According to the complete figures of the prefecture for the 4th district of the Var, the ex-journalist, fourth in the presidential election with approximately 7% of the votes, was preceded by 801 votes by the candidate of the National Rally. “You were patriots, you were lucid, you were right to vote for the only party that defends you and defends our country. We proposed union to the other right-wing parties, they did not want it, the left had the free way and we can see the result tonight,” added Mr. Zemmour.
“50 shades of leftism”
“Mélenchon and Macron are only two sides of the same coin. Our political life today is therefore 50 shades of leftism”, still judged the former polemicist, for whom Reconquest!, the party he founded , “will be the only right-wing party, the party of reality, faced with a government that lies shamelessly. Reconquest! will be the only right-wing party that will not be ashamed of being right-wing”.
“I would have liked to represent the Varois, you who look so much like me”, said Mr. Zemmour again, before warning that “five years of hard work await us”.