After hesitating for a long time, the former far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour is embarking on the battle for the legislative elections in the Var, in the district of Saint-Tropez, despite an election that promises to be very difficult for his camp.
“Reconquest is back everywhere in France. I will lead our beautiful and great fight alongside our 550 candidates. I am running in the 4th district of Var”, tweeted Eric Zemmour Thursday, he who had collected 7.07% of the vote in the presidential election.
To explain his choice, the former editorial writer for Le Figaro and CNews will hold a meeting on a beach in Cogolin at 6:00 p.m. this Thursday.
He chose a constituency where he obtained 14.7% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election, against 32.2% for Marine Le Pen and 24.1% for Emmanuel Macron. With one of its best national scores in the upscale city of Saint-Tropez: 22.4% of the vote.
The President of Reconquest! In particular, he will face an RN candidate, Philippe Lottiaux, and the outgoing Macronist MP Sereine Mauborgne. The rebellious Sabine Cristofani-Viglione will also try her luck.
Eric Zemmour took several weeks to get started. He has repeatedly called for an agreement with the National Rally, to no avail.
Some relatives, like the ex-RN MEP Jérôme Rivière, recommended that he wait for the Europeans in two years, to avoid a defeat on his behalf after the slap received in the presidential election.
“He had in mind for a long time to be a candidate”, assures however the vice-president of Reconquest! and former LR Guillaume Peltier.
“The final success is always preceded by trials and risks. His philosophy is Napoleonic, Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole always seizes the flag to lead his troops and set an example”, he adds. Outgoing MP for Loir-et-Cher, Guillaume Peltier has not decided his personal case and could remain director of the legislative campaign without presenting himself.
At the RN, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, former deputy campaign manager of Marine Le Pen and himself a candidate in the Somme, denounces the “off-ground candidacy” of Eric Zemmour. “It’s very late and a campaign is being prepared, you have to know the territory,” insists this RN executive.
If he “shows up, he goes to the box”, also commented the president of RN Jordan Bardella on Wednesday.
Parisian, Eric Zemmour finally let his lieutenants embark on the chic districts of the capital, Sébastien Pilard (ex-LR) in the 14th district (16th arrondissement) and Garen Shnorhokian in the 4th (17th arrondissement).
“By presenting himself, Eric Zemmour runs a risk: a mediocre score could definitively exclude him from the political scene”, estimates with AFP the former president of the National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was in favor of an agreement between the RN and Reconquest!.
The leader of the Reconquête! youth movement, Stanislas Rigault, is a candidate in neighboring Vaucluse. Pregnant, former FN deputy (now RN) Marion Maréchal, vice-president of Reconquête!, has given up running.
For the legislative, Reconquest! presents young candidates, mostly from civil society. Among them is Damien Rieu, co-founder of the dissolved ultra-right group Identity Generation, or Patrick Jardin, father of a victim of the attacks of November 13, 2015, as well as police officer Bruno Attal.
The former yellow vest Benjamin Cauchy launches for his part in the Aisne.
According to Guillaume Peltier, the campaign “is based on an ideological corpus: identity, sovereign and migratory questions”. And on a call for “the union of rights and patriots”.
Eric Zemmour had swept away fears about the future of his training at the beginning of May. “Those who hate us say that we died the evening of the first round of the presidential election,” he said. “I think we were born that night.”
On the legal front, the Paris Court of Appeal is to rule this Thursday on past remarks by Eric Zemmour, tried for “disputing a crime against humanity”. He argued in October 2019 on CNews that Marshal Pétain had “saved” French Jews during World War II.
05/12/2022 13:15:46 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP
https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/legislatives-eric-zemmour-se-lance-a-saint-tropez-12-05-2022-2475369_20.php