For Reconquest, Christmas fell on August 26. Nicolas Sarkozy – without a white beard but with a full hood – brings Eric Zemmour’s movement a great gift. In an interview at Parisian, the former head of state calls for finding a leader capable of “bringing together the friends of Zemmour, Macron and Ciotti” so that his camp wins in 2027. The far-right essayist was not asking for that much ! Here he is placed in the great family of the right by a former President of the Republic. Marion Maréchal grabs the ball on the leap. The head of the Reconquest in the European list welcomed Wednesday September 6 on TF1 Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a rally, on the occasion of the announcement of his candidacy.
You shouldn’t be ungrateful… and clumsy. Reconquest nourishes the hope of siphoning off the electorate from Republicans (LR) to exceed 5% and enter the European Parliament. Marion Maréchal promised this Thursday, September 7 to tilt the enclosure to the right to wage her civilizational battle there. Defense of “our identity”, protection of “economic freedoms”, “end of statism”, “fight against woke propaganda”… The former FN MP rattled off a string of right-wing totems. François Fillon on steroids.
After the failure of its takeover bid for the National Rally, Reconquest hunts small game. The priority is to dismember LR, who is struggling to recover from the presidential debacle of Valérie Pécresse. Eric Zemmour knows how to count. 12% of François Fillon’s voters in 2017 voted for him in 2022, as did 9% of LR-UDI supporters. The polemicist intends to grow in this conservative electorate, less popular than that of the RN and more in line with its liberal-identity offer. A sociological segment more ready to mobilize for elections of this type, which Marine Le Pen’s niece hopes to capture.
A weak electoral base
This strategy does not frighten the right. The Republicans are gambling for their survival in this election, but observe the Reconquest offensive with perplexity. We depict a movement at the end of its run, incapable of keeping its original promise: the alliance of the working classes and the “patriotic bourgeoisie”. Its sociological uniformity would be its tomb. “Their base is very weak, notes LR vice-president Guilhem Carayon. They will fight to make 5% and if they do less, it’s over. We must bring back to us as a priority those who voted for Fillon in 2017.”
The movement’s margin for progress would finally be reduced in an LR electorate frightened by its virulence. “We find Zemmour’s old dream of eating up LR,” notes a leader. “But there is a classic right-wing electorate who finds him too radical.” The absence of the party in the National Assembly – forced to take refuge in agit-prop to exist – reinforces this marginality. And then, Marion Maréchal is a Le Pen. This name – abandoned in her communication – brings her back to the RN. An LR MEP is already salivating at the idea of calling him “Le Pen” on television. “All of this is especially annoying for Jordan Bardella,” we hear.
Bellamy-Marshal duel?
Quietly, a duel is taking place between Marion Maréchal and François-Xavier Bellamy, possible head of the LR list. Two liberal and conservative personalities. The philosopher just adopts a more subtle identity and a more constructed European discourse than his rival. Who benefits from this resemblance? LR number 2 privately believes he is able to avoid any hemorrhage of the LR electorate thanks to the firmness of his speech. “If you put a centrist personality, you can wish this electorate a safe trip,” smiles a supporter of the Bellamy solution.
In the Zemmour camp, the reasoning is the opposite. The ideological proximity of Marion Maréchal and François-Xavier Bellamy would be likely to reassure the LR voter, who would not have to jump into the unknown. “François-Xavier Bellamy is obviously close to me, because he announced that he would join me if I reached the second round,” repeats Eric Zemmour with all his might.
“We always prefer the original to the copy”
Marshal? An improved version of Bellamy, freer and chemically pure in thought. For the Zemmourie, the putative candidate of the right suffers from a major handicap: his partisan label would lead to belonging to the EPP group within the European Parliament, and therefore an “alliance with the left”. In the event of an election, Eric Zemmour’s supporters are targeting the ECR group, whose members MEP Nicolas Bay has been courting for several months and with whom they claim to be perfectly in touch. In other words, voting Marshal means not giving up, or compromising yourself by sitting with the left and the ecologists. “Bellamy is caught in a trap of LR and PPE”, laughs Eric Zemmour.
At Reconquête, we knowingly omit one name: Valérie Pécresse. The weakness of candidate LR plunged into the arms of the essayist a cohort of right-wing voters in 2022. The scarecrow has disappeared. A candidate with a tougher speech, speaking to Fillonist voters and stamped with the respectable LR acronym, could well bring more than one back to the fold. “We always prefer the original to the copy,” warns a right-wing strategist. The historic label against the young party. The rising figure of LR against the former Front. Here, who is the original, who is the copy?