As every year, the leaders of the National Rally will go this Sunday, May 1 in front of the statue of Joan of Arc, place Saint-Augustin in Paris (8th), to lay a wreath to the glory and the memory of the famous warrior.
Carried by Jordan Bardella, acting president of the party, this tribute is scheduled to be held at 11 a.m.
Post-presidential context obliges, the event takes this year an even more political turn than usual, in the perspective of the legislative elections to come.
Thursday, from Fréjus (Var), Jordan Bardella had already sounded the hour of the mobilization of the RN for the ballot of June 12 and 19 by confirming, in particular, that the now ex-candidate for the 2022 presidential election, Marine Le Pen, would a good candidate for re-election in his stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais).
The young 26-year-old MEP had meanwhile announced that he would not seek to be elected to the Assembly “wishing to complete his mandate” in Brussels.
A time announced to be present at the tribute paid to the virgin of Orleans, Marine Le Pen will however not be there today in front of her effigy, learned the political service of CNEWS.
After a few days of rest following her defeat in the second round of the presidential election, beaten with 41.46% of the votes cast against 58.54% for Emmanuel Macron, it is nevertheless expected that she will chair a “big video conference with all the candidates and executives for the legislative elections”.
A tutelary figure for a divided camp
The RN, which brings together a nomination committee on Tuesday, must indeed have to choose by the end of the week as many candidates as there are constituencies, or 577 including that of Marine Le Pen, therefore, in Hénin-Beaumont.
So far, the party has ruled out any alliance in the first round with Reconquest, to the chagrin of its leader Éric Zemmour, a tireless supporter of the “union of rights”. In the second round, however, the RN said it was “willing to support” the best-placed patriotic candidates.
In the meantime, everything suggests that the differences and attacks between the two camps will continue. Thursday, Jordan Bardella had already castigated Eric Zemmour’s “suicidal strategy” and his “inconsistency” in criticizing Marine Le Pen before “seeking his help to get elected”.
For the record, the former polemicist also often highlighted Joan of Arc, not hesitating to consider the one who was burned alive in Rouen on May 30, 1431 by the English, as his “grandmother”. A plea for his assimilation.
Still, if the young martyr has undoubtedly remained as a tutelary figure of the national right, it is not certain that today she will manage to bring it together.