“You’re really pitiful.” The placid Eric Ciotti lets his anger explode. This September 29, 2023, the president of the Republicans sends this angry SMS to Guillaume Peltier, guilty of yet another provocation. No. 2 of Reconquête, ex-LR MP, accuses in a video the LR municipality of Valence of maintaining “links with the Muslim Brotherhood”. Just that. Here is the city of Drôme erected as a symbol of “Islamo-rightism”, a neologism invented by Eric Zemmour during the last presidential campaign to target Valérie Pécresse. A few days earlier, the essayist debated with Vincent Jeanbrun, mayor (LR) of L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne), during an evening organized by the far-right media Livre noir, at Paris. On the sidelines of the contest, the polemicist’s advisor, Sarah Knafo, slips to the councilor: “As long as you are afraid of the union of the rights, you will be condemned to lose.”
Here, a vague call of the foot tinged with bitterness. There, burst attacks. Since its creation, Reconquête has had an ambiguous relationship with LR. Three weeks before the European elections, each camp wants to establish its domination over the other. Eric Ciotti’s party, credited with 7 to 8% of voting intentions, is only 1 or 2 points ahead of its competitor in the polls. “We have to put Zemmour below 5%”, confided Laurent Wauquiez to an LR executive. During their strategic meetings, the putative candidate for the Elysée and Eric Ciotti examine the polls of voting intentions, focusing on the second choices of Reconquest voters. François-Xavier Bellamy is finally following Marion Maréchal’s campaign with a close eye, reveling in the internal tensions in his campaign team.
“The right that betrays”
The right nourishes the hope that a crash of the ex-frontist will put an end to the Zemmourist adventure and free up its political space with a view to 2027. Are François-Xavier Bellamy criticized for his conservatism? He poses as a shield against a “hemorrhage” from the right-wing electorate towards the former MP. LR smells the smell of blood, his rival too. Reconquest wishes to repeat the performance of the last presidential election, once again ahead of the heir of the UMP. And arrogate to itself the monopoly of the “right”, which only LR contests on the political scene. “This would be a beautiful symbol, even if the stakes are higher among them given their decline. We are a party that has just been born, notes a leader of the movement. But being in front of them does not mean that we must tackle.”
To hit them or not? Two strategies confront each other among the Zemmourists. The Maréchal clan judges that its electoral base is among Republican voters rather than on the National Rally side. Eric Zemmour’s party trumpeted in September its ambition to “replace the right”. Marion Maréchal, since then, has worked hard to denounce the supposed “Islamo-rightism” of LR elected officials and the incompatibility of a right-wing vote with the membership of LR elected officials in the EPP group in the European Parliament. “The right that betrays”, “VonDerLR”… Aggressive communication is deployed on social networks against the candidacy of François-Xavier Bellamy. “The RN has progressed by 5 to 6 points in the polls since September, while we have held on, or even progressed, and LR has declined. Their voters are those whose certainty of voting is the lowest,” analyzes an advisor to Marion Maréchal. Privately, Guillaume Peltier judges that 400,000 voters in Ile-de-France are hesitating between the two lists.
“The porosities are stronger between the RN and Reconquête”
Alas, this self-proclaimed opinion specialist convinces less and less. A growing part of the far-right party executives are making a strategic withdrawal, as the attacks do not shake the LR list. The numbers are stubborn. Only 5% of François-Xavier Bellamy’s potential voters make Marion Maréchal their second choice, far behind the RN and Renaissance. According to an Ipsos survey carried out in April among more than 10,000 people, 69% of Reconquest supporters, on the other hand, place Jordan Bardella as a second option. “The porosities are greater between the RN and Reconquête than between Reconquête and LR. If we were in a presidential election with the logic of a useful vote, Marion Maréchal would be siphoned off,” notes Brice Teinturier, deputy general manager of Ipsos.
The ambition to defeat LR is intact, but the land of conquest is elsewhere. “I am not an ideologist, I know how to read a poll and recognize that I was wrong, assures an executive. Locking yourself into a match with LR had the only effect of making our electorate flee towards the RN. This It’s not Bellamy who takes our votes, it’s the RN.” The priority is now to target the National Rally, portrayed as a “party of polls” rather than “courage”. Which does not prevent some regular barbs against the right. We never know…
“It’s dragging us down.”
Reconquest? Do not know. The right, for its part, pretends to ignore this rival who bites its calves. “The real debate is not between us and Reconquest, but between European socialists and the European right,” insisted François-Xavier Bellamy on Tuesday during the presentation of his program. The Versaillais is trying to reintroduce this old divide into the campaign to seduce voters from the Macronist right. Without simultaneously carrying out an offensive against the supporters of Eric Zemmour.
On the right, we especially judge this duel to be deadly. It is generally agreed that Valérie Pécresse damaged herself by targeting Eric Zemmour during the presidential election. The candidate had weakened her rival, but had retained the scars. “This is dragging us down,” judges a campaign executive. What do successive defeats matter: LR still sees itself as a government party, more destined to strike iron with power than with a movement without elected officials. Strategy and condescension intertwine in this silence opposed to the attacks of the Zemmourist camp. “We were promised the Reconquest-LR match in Ligue 2. That didn’t happen,” François-Xavier Bellamy smiled in April, against the evidence. An LR leader analyzes: “Out of ego, he doesn’t want to be in the dwarves’ match. But it’s also a doctrinal choice.”
An ideological twinship is observed between the MEP and Marion Maréchal on societal or sovereign issues. François-Xavier Bellamy affirmed in 2021 that he would vote for Eric Zemmour in the event of a duel against Emmanuel Macron. His convictions bring him closer to Marion Maréchal than to Alain Juppé. “Geoffroy Didier is what has been ruining the right for ten years,” he confided to an interlocutor about his running mate, with a more central position. Nothing in the MEP tends to lead an ideological war against his rival. Beating her on June 9 will be enough for her.
.