The MEP and leading member of the National Rally, Nicolas Bay, dismissed from office on Tuesday by the party for “sabotage” for the benefit of Eric Zemmour, announced on Wednesday evening that he was “fully committed” to the candidate of extreme right rival of Marine Le Pen.
“I have decided to fully commit myself alongside Éric Zemmour to the presidential campaign because I deeply believe in his candidacy, his project and his strategy”, states in Le Figaro MEP. “By constantly seeking to appease the moral left, I think that we are making a political but also a tactical error. And we now see that the candidacy of Marine Le Pen arouses a certain indifference”, he adds.
“Retreats” which have “demobilized the voters”, judge Nicolas Bay
Accused by the RN of “disloyalty”, Nicolas Bay explains that the “true infidelity” towards voters is “to give up denouncing the shackles of the European Court of Human Rights, at the exit of Schengen, at the end of binationality, accept PMA without a father”. “These multiple reversals and setbacks have contributed to demobilizing our voters and constitute, for once, a real infidelity towards them,” he believes.
The RN candidate, who criticizes the “brutality” of Eric Zemmour’s proposals, “confuses extremism and radicalism. When our country is on the brink, the measures to be implemented are necessarily radical. I don’t think that we will eradicate Islamism from Roubaix or that we will liberate the northern districts of Marseille from drug traffickers with half measures”, adds Nicolas Bay.
Marine Le Pen’s candidacy arouses “indifference”
“By constantly seeking to appease the moral left, I think that we are making a political but also tactical error. And we now see that the candidacy of Marine Le Pen arouses a certain indifference”, he judges. The MEP is also a guest of BFMTV-RMC on Thursday morning. Before this announcement, Marine Le Pen judged Wednesday evening on LCI that Nicolas Bay “could no longer” stay by his side, “from the moment when people behave badly, when they are disloyal”.
“I don’t mind him leaving, but why stay in the countryside as long as possible to sabotage the campaign from the inside and end up making a movie and leaving?” Added the far-right candidate, claiming to have “made his career”. “Behaviour like that makes people stop voting,” she said.
Marine Le Pen claims to have proof of the sabotage of Bay
The RN accuses Nicolas Bay of “sabotage” for having transmitted information to the rival of Marine Le Pen, which the MEP refutes. Marine Le Pen assured LCI that she had “the elements” but refused to make them public. Without naming him, Marine Le Pen had Tuesday “asked those who operate the slug strategy to please speed up their departures (…) because the slug is slow but also sticky”.
Three MEPs – Jérôme Rivière, Gilbert Collard and Maxette Pirbakas – have joined the candidate Reconquête! Eric Zemmour, followed on Sunday by the only senator RN Stéphane Ravier, as well as several regional advisers.