“The real”. On the far right, the latest fashion is to use this term, ad nauseam. The idea: to demonstrate that there would be an alternative reality to the discourse conveyed by the media. A “reality”, essentially made up of sordid news items, problems of insecurity, almost always linked to immigration, and which journalists would make invisible. Eric Zemmour, in 2022, campaigning as a self-proclaimed candidate “of reality and truth”. Jordan Bardella, in February of the same year, after his indictment for having described the Yvelin town of Trappes as an “Islamic republic”, declared: “I deplore that French justice pursues the same goal as the Islamists: to silence those who denounce reality.”
From the weight of words to the shock of photos. The Lampedusa opportunity was too good. Last week, more than 11,000 people from North Africa landed on the shores of the small Italian island. It didn’t take much for Marion Maréchal to jump on a plane. So here is the head of the Reconquête list for the European elections wandering among the migrants, chaining duplexes like a “special envoy”, denouncing the “migrant overwhelm” while its teams quote all over the place The Camp of the Saints (famous novel by Jean Raspail, compass of identity). Result: shocking images, signature of the Zemmourist party. But the admission, also, of impotence. That of their claimed ally and Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who, elected on the promise of a “naval blockade”, ended up launching an appeal in concert with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, asking their European aid partners in the management of this migratory flow. When ideology meets reality.
2,000 kilometers away, Marine Le Pen laughed: “Lampedusa? But to do what? I went there at the time when we needed images, but those days are over. ” Marion Maréchal will appreciate it. Above all, the leader of the French far right mocks the calls for help sent to the European Union by Reconquête and Giorgia Meloni. “It is vain to call on the EU to resolve the diplomatic crisis like a child calls mom when he has a problem,” she says. “The idea of delegating migration responsibility to the EU is everything we fight against, immigration is a national responsibility.” In any case, she repeats it: “I am closer to Matteo Salvini than to Giorgia Meloni.” Marine Le Pen, who was also in Italy on Sunday September 17 to support her League ally, clearly underlines the gulf that would separate her from the President of the Italian Council (and her record on the migration issue). Jordan Bardella, for his part, calls on Emmanuel Macron to “make a solemn commitment” not to welcome any migrants. “This is the moment of truth: helplessness or firmness?” even adds the MEP, comfortably installed in his role as opponent. How convenient it is, sometimes, for “real” candidates not to face reality.