A long-time activist
She is not the best known of the thirteen spokespersons for Marine Le Pen’s campaign. However, Laure Lavalette, 46, began to be an activist in the National Front twenty-five years ago. Then a student at the law school in Bordeaux, she presented herself, at the age of 22, to the cantonal elections in Bègles (Gironde) under the colors of the far-right party. Without success. That year, she also failed her exams – “we can’t put up posters and do our tutorials”. At the end of her studies, in 1999, she joined the MNR of the former number 2 of the FN Bruno Mégret for a few months. A graduate in vine and wine law, she married, moved to Toulon, became a stay-at-home mother, before returning to politics in 2012. She was elected municipal councilor in Toulon in 2014, then regional councilor in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur in 2021.
An ambitious mother
“I am a mother of five children, when they go out, I am scared. » Faced with journalists, Laure Lavalette does not hesitate to talk about her family life. “I am anchored in real life”, she likes to repeat, never losing her smile. Her children now teenagers, she spent “two-three days a week in Paris” during the campaign and multiplied on the sets of CNews, LCI or RMC. Until you enter “the big leagues” on the evening of the second round, with an appearance, in a green jacket, on France 2. Coached, in the fall of 2021, by former BFM journalist Pascal Humeau, Laure Lavalette was comfortable on the sets. The end of the presidential race even had the effect of a “baby blues”.
A southern lepenist
“Our mother of battles is the survival of our civilization, the fight against Islamism, the fight against insecurity. » So she spoke, in October 2021, to the regional council. This “practicing Catholic” trend La Manif pour tous is anti-abortion, opposed to PMA and “nauseous theories” of the “LGBT propaganda”. A very reactionary line, then. “She does not represent the Marine Le Pen current, rather that of Jean-Marie, well from the South, or of Marion Maréchal when she was at the FN”, says Cécile Muschotti, LRM deputy for Var and municipal councilor in Toulon. “I have no difficulty with the societal line of Marine Le Pen”, replies Laure Lavalette.
A candidate for deputy
Laure Lavalette is standing in the legislative elections in the second constituency of Var, which brings together five cantons of Toulon and its surroundings, including the municipality of… La Valette-du-Var. This demographic area of 86,000 inhabitants could fall into the hands of the RN. Marine Le Pen won 49.6% of the vote in Toulon in the second round, 5.5 points more than in 2017. During the 2017 legislative elections, the FN had obtained 42.7% of the vote. “There have always been unknown candidates for the battalion who did not master all the subjects. For the first time, we are going to have a formidable and brilliant RN candidate.worries Cécile Muschotti.