candidates, strategy and poll results

RECONQUEST! – With a view to the legislative elections on 12th and 19th June next, Éric Zemmour’s party has nominated 550 candidates out of the 577 constituencies, even if the campaign looks complicated according to the polls.

[Mise à jour le 13 mai 2022 à 16h28] Éric Zemmour’s decision was long overdue, but the president of Reconquête! will be a candidate in the legislative elections, in the 4^and district of the Var, that of Saint-Tropez. He announced it this Thursday, May 12, during a press conference, in Cogolin, a city which is also part of the constituency, surrounded by around fifty activists. A mandatory strategy for the candidate, in order to remain visible in politics, the polls not being good for the party. This announcement was made one week before the official closing of the nominations for these elections which designate the deputies. Éric Zemmour also announced it on Twitter.

During his press conference, he said, “I couldn’t see myself leading the fight from behind.” It’s in the 4^and district of Var that Éric Zemmour achieved his best result in the presidential election with 14.7% of the vote in the first round, against 7.07% nationally. When we talk to him about parachuting, he retorts: “I love the Var, I love the people of Var, (…) it is here that I opened my literary tour, that I welcomed Marion Maréchal. ( …) Whenever something important happens for me, I am in the Var.” This election promises to be complicated all the same for the president of the party.

The party will therefore present 550 candidates out of the 577 constituencies in France. However, few headliners appear on the list of nominations and several figures at the head of the party make the suspense last. Some personalities even left the party between the presidential and the legislative elections, such as the former deputy director of campaign strategy Antoine Diers or the former spokesperson Jean Messiha.

Among the big absentees from the ballot, we find Marion Maréchal, one of the main catches of Éric Zemmour. She announced in a post on social networks that she would not be a legislative candidate. She writes that “at eight months of pregnancy” she will not be able to “carry out a field campaign”. Samuel Lafont, Éric Zemmour’s social media gentleman during the presidential campaign, announced as a candidate in the Gard, has finally thrown in the towel. Official reason: calendar incompatibility. “I will take care of the communication of the campaign in Paris. I will not be able to do everything”, he justified in the local press. A headliner of the party still hesitates to present himself, it is Guillaume Peltier. He is the only outgoing deputy of Reconquest!, but would hesitate to start.

Certain personalities have already announced that they would be candidates for the legislative elections. Apart from Éric Zemmour, one of the last to declare himself a candidate is Stanislas Rigault, president of Generation Z and member of the party’s staff. While the National Rally wanted to recover it, it will be well under the Reconquest label! in the 2^and constituency of Vaucluse. Another candidate, this time in the 4^and constituency of the Alpes-Maritimes, the identity activist Damien Rieu, in charge of the “electoral communication” of Reconquête! However, he is the subject of a complaint from the striker of the French football team Karim Benzema for “defamation”. The procedure targets two tweets from the former member of the RN.

Also, we find Jérémie Piano, candidate in the 11^and constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, he is the former spokesperson for Génération identitaire, the organization dissolved by the Minister of the Interior. In the 14^and Rhône district, Bruno Attal, policeman and member of the France Police union, will also be a candidate. Patrick Jardin, candidate in the 4^and North constituency, is the father of one of the victims of the November 13 attacks. Since the tragedy, he has multiplied violent speeches against Islam, to the point of being listed as S since June 2018.

In anticipation of the legislative elections, Éric Zemmour, on the very evening of the second round of the presidential election, reached out to the National Rally (RN), to Debout la France and to some of the Republicans, in order to present joint candidacies for run for the National Assembly, as part of the “first coalition of rights and patriots”. To have an “alliance” accepted, Éric Zemmour had made concessions and announced that his party would not present a candidate in the constituencies of Marine Le Pen, Éric Ciotti and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.

Several RN officials have said they are hostile to negotiations with the political formation of Éric Zemmour. Jordan Bardella, head of the RN, believes that no Reconquest candidate! “will not be able to qualify in the second round” and that Éric Zemmour “goes to the cardboard”.

Without a major alliance, the legislative elections promise to be very complicated for Reconquête! According to a latest survey by Cluster17 in recent days, only 5.5% of French people questioned want to support a Reconquest candidate!

Eric Zemmour therefore launched his “Reconquest” party on Sunday December 5, 2021. A name which did not fail to make people react, given its historical sounding corresponding to the capture of the Iberian Peninsula by the Spanish Christians who were then under Muslim aegis between 722 and 1492. A complete article on this period of history can be found on Linternaute. Faced with this reference, the name of the formation of the polemicist did not fail to react. “This episode is burnings, expulsions, forced conversions, torture, the Inquisition. Words have meaning. Zemmour’s program is violence and chaos, criticized the LFI deputy for Seine-Saint -Denis, Bastien Lachaud, supported by his friend Alexis Corbière: “for those who love history, this name is a program of violence”. For his part, the presidential candidate launched two slogans: “impossible is not French” and “so that France remains France”.

The official composition of Eric Zemmour’s political party is not official. However, the name of the campaign manager has been formalized: it is Bertrand de La Chesnais, former major general of the army, who already advised him on defense issues. This 63-year-old former soldier was a candidate for mayor of Carpentras in the last municipal elections of 2020. Without a label, he had succeeded, with the support of the National Rally and the Christian Democratic Party, to reach the second round. He was finally beaten with 39.17% of the vote against 45.81% for the outgoing mayor Serge Andrieu (various left).

Moreover, some people are strongly expected to be part of the party organization chart. Thus, among the supporters close to the polemicist, the name of Sarah Knafo is the one that comes up the most. This young 28-year-old enarque is the polemicist’s closest adviser and campaign director, “the one who recruits collaborators, organizes her meetings and her agenda, goes in search of sponsorship from local elected officials”, specifies LCI. Alternately campaign director, strategist, director of communications, special adviser and pen of the candidate, she was in charge of the entire campaign of the one who has just declared himself a presidential candidate.

Olivier Ubéda, Eric Zemmour’s national events director, could also be there. Former collaborator of personalities of the French right like Alain Juppé or Rachida Dati, he took care of the organization and the communication of the meetings Nicolas Sarkozy and the ex-minister of culture Franck Riester. Julien Madar is also potentially part of the political training body. Responsible for raising funds for the candidacies of Eric Zemmour, he in turn supported Nicolas Sarkozy and Emmanuel Macron, before turning to the polemicist. With the discreet Jonathan Nadler, coordinator for two years of the program department of Eric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo, they form, between them, those who are designated as the “four musketeers” of Eric Zemmour, according to Le Figaro. These four advisers will therefore most likely be part of the organization chart of the political formation of the now candidate.

Samuel Lafont, its digital communications manager, is also cited among the prospective party members to come. A former member of François Fillon’s campaign in 2017, he is also an activist in French Spring, a dissident movement of La Manif pour Tous. He encouraged his 33,000 Twitter followers to support the writer by relaying his messages or distributing his campaign posters.

Stanislas Rigault, the president of “Generation Z”, may also be on the list. Louis Marenaud, a political communicator, in charge of events and travel, Paul Rougeron, former student of Arts et Métiers in charge of operations, Johanna Humphrey, in charge of the logistical organization of the campaign, are just as many names as we can hear this Sunday when the composition of the party is announced. But that’s not all. Antoine Diers is also a figure who will potentially take on even more importance. This is the spokesperson for the Friends of Éric Zemmour – an association created and chaired by François Miramont who will undoubtedly play an important role in the composition of the party – who is often seen on sets where he defends the potential candidate in the presidential election. It was thanks to Sarah Knafo, whom he met when he was an activist at UNI, that he was introduced to this political circle. He also marched with La Manif pour tous.

Michel Loussouarn, a former soldier, would be responsible for taking care of “organizing the territorial network”, according to LCI. Finally, the names of Gilbert Payet is also mentioned by our colleagues. He is “the financial and legal manager of the campaign”, also recruited by Sarah Knafo.