Marion Maréchal Le Pen will lead the Reconquest list! in the next European elections. It is based on a conservative line of “defense of values threatened by migratory overwhelm and Islamization”.
Marion Maréchal Le Pen is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front, and the niece of Marine Le Pen, leader of the renamed National Rally party in 2017, now chaired by Jordan Bardella.In May 2017, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen retired from political life and a few months later participated in the founding of the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP), a school of higher education in political sciences. She leaves the management of the school in 2022 to return to politics, on the occasion of Eric Zemmour’s candidacy for the presidential election. Marion Maréchal Le Pen joins the Reconquest! party, of which she becomes executive vice-president. In September 2023, she is named head of the Reconquest list! to lead the European campaign until the vote on June 9.
Marion Maréchal Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni in the same group in the European Parliament
In September 2023, Marion Maréchal Le Pen indicated that the European election appeared to be a “historic opportunity” because “for the first time, we have the opportunity to tip the European Union held by the center and the left towards a majority of the real right” at the microphone of TF1. For her, it is “the defense of our true identity, of our culture, of our values which are today threatened by migratory overwhelm and Islamization” which is at stake.
Since February 6, 2024, Marion Maréchal Le Pen’s party, Reconquest!, has joined the group of European Conservatives and Reformists (CRE, or ECR in English), including the party led by the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni. “The CRE group and party are already very influential within European bodies and are intended, following the next European elections, to become the pivotal and central group of the right in the Strasbourg Parliament” explained Eric Zemmour’s protégé in the columns of Le Point, at the beginning of February. And it is the MP Nicolas Bay who will represent the Reconquest group. “We are very happy to welcome a MEP, Nicolas Bay, with whom we have already been working for a long time, recently indicated Nicola Procaccini, co-president of the CRE group, Italian MEP from Fratelli di Italia, the far-right party of the head of the Italian government Giorgia Meloni.
Hostile to immigration and GPA, in favor of a “remigration” project
However, does Marion Maréchal Le Pen have a line totally aligned with ECR? Absolutely not. The majority of ECR forces are in favor of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union as well as its enlargement to the Western Balkans. For its part, the head of the Reconquest list! to the Europeans is fiercely opposed to it. “You will never find a European group, whatever its political leaning, which is unanimous on everything” she conceded in Le Point.
She wants a profound revision of European policy, respect for the sovereignty of nations. She also indicates that she is in line with the strengthening of external borders, the fight against “pro-LGBT, woke propaganda or subsidies”, and the fight against the normalization of surrogacy (GPA). As a reminder, Marion Maréchal Le Pen also defended the AfD, the German nationalist party, regarding their “remigration” project. A notion defended during Éric Zemmour’s presidential campaign with notably the ideas of “the expulsion of Islamist foreigners and the famous S files, the expulsion of long-term unemployed foreigners who could not provide for themselves, and the expulsion of foreign criminals ” she explains, still in Le Point.
If Marion Maréchal Le Pen’s European CV is not yet well stocked, she intends to shake up the hierarchy. Its pillars remain the fight against a European Commission that would be “pro-LGBT” and “wokist” and the fight against immigration. And joining the CRE is not by chance. With 68 MEPs, it is one of two populist and Eurosceptic parties in the European Parliament. The Polish PIS and the Spanish VOX are also part of it. This alliance therefore gives more weight to the Reconquest speech! and Marion Maréchal Le Pen and marks for her the end of political isolation in the European Parliament. “My objective is obviously to beat Emmanuel Macron and his group in the European Parliament. And, in fact, today, only ECR is able to do that,” she indicated to France Info on February 7.
Marion Maréchal Le Pen lagging behind with 7% of voting intentions
According to a survey carried out by Odoxa for Public Senate and the regional press, the National Rally list led by Jordan Bardella comes well ahead of voting intentions in the next European elections. In second place, eleven points behind, the list of the presidential majority is credited with 19% of the votes and will be led, because it is now official, by Valérie Hayer. The third step of the podium is occupied by Raphaël Glucksmann for the Socialist Party (11%).
The Reconquest! list, led by Marion Maréchal Le Pen, remains far behind with 7% of voting intentions, however it gains one point in voting intentions in one month. She is close behind the LR list led by François-Xavier Bellamy and that of Marie Toussaint for the environmentalists, both credited with 8.5% of voting intentions. It is clear, for the moment, the relatively significant delay of the list led by Marion Maréchal Le Pen on the two announced tenors of the next European elections, the National Rally and Renaissance, the presidential party.