RECONQUEST. Eric Zemmour’s party aspired to enter the National Assembly. No Reconquest candidate ultimately qualified for the second round of legislative elections. So what future for far-right training?
Look for a legislative result near you
Zero points. Eric Zemmour and Reconquête have once again failed. Heavily. After the bitter setback suffered in the presidential election, it was a real slap in the face that the far-right party at 1er round of legislative elections. Not a single one of its candidates qualified for the 2e round. None of the media figures of the formation, whether the founder in person, the young Stanislas Rigault, or the ex-LR Guillaume Peltier, yet an outgoing deputy from his constituency, has managed to qualify. In a speech shortly after the announcement of the first estimates, Eric Zemmour admitted that “the results do not meet our expectations.” Relegated to the background in the presidential election, erased from the political landscape even before having installed an elected member of the National Assembly, what future can Reconquest now claim? Is the party, born less than a year ago, already doomed to disappear?
Within Reconquest, the hypothesis is refuted. The course is rather set for the next electoral deadlines, namely the European elections of 2024, but above all the municipal elections of 2026. Eric Zemmour was pleased to have, with these legislative elections, “placed a flag in each constituency of France.” A young party with novice candidates, most of whom were making their debut in politics, the far-right party does not want to admit defeat after this first failure. These laymen of the electoral campaigns, or almost, suffered from their lack of local anchoring, of balance sheet to defend. It is thus difficult to be heard in territories in which the main candidates were already established. From then on, Reconquête intends to structure itself more, to assert its ideas and to see figures emerge. In short, to solidify a framework that is still young and fragile, although strong with 130,000 members. Reconquest does not want to bury itself.
But his opponents could do it for him. Because these legislative elections, like the presidential one before them, highlighted the rivalry between Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen. If the first had, for example, not invested a candidate in the constituency of the second, the latter did not hesitate to send candidates to challenge the representatives of Reconquest, and in particular Eric Zemmour. What wither the voices of the far right and prevent the former polemicist from rising to 2e turn, he who had yet reached out to the National Rally for a union for the legislative elections. In vain. From now on, the course is set: to fight “against the Islamo-leftism of Mélenchon and the technocratic and careerist left of Macron” with his training, “the only right-wing party” according to him.
Eric Zemmour had tried, in vain, to seal a pact with Marine Le Pen for the legislative elections. If the approach had not succeeded in the face of the refusal of the boss of the RN, the fallen presidential candidate had not however invested any pretender to the deputation against his rival, just like against Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and Eric Ciotti. On the other hand, a Reconquest! was present in almost all the constituencies. Among the candidates, some leading figures such asEric Zemmour in person, invested in the 4e constituency of the Var, in Saint-Tropez. Not far from there, the head of Generation Z, Stanislas Rigaulthad tried to be elected in the 2e du Vaucluse, helped by his deputy, Marion Maréchal. Reconquête had also invested some headliners in the Alpes-Maritimes: Philippe Vardon (3e), ex-executive of the RN, Damien Rieu (4e), identity activist, or Denis Cieslik (6e), former head of sponsorships for the presidential election. Otherwise, Guillaume Peltierex-LR, was a candidate for his succession, in the 2e constituency of Loir-et-Cher, just like the first mayor to have publicly supported Eric Zemmour, Wolf Wolfin the 4e constituency of Côte-d’Or. The former figure of the Yellow Vests, Benjamin Cauchyhad presented himself in the 1st of Aisne, but also the union policeman Bruno Attal in the 14e du Rhône, or even two presidents of Sens commun, Laurence Trochu (1st of Yvelines) and Sebastien Pillard (14e from Paris). Finally, Amaury de Bourbon Parmaa distant descendant of Louis XIV, had been invested in the 2e of the Orne.