Le Pen shrugs off yet another defection in battle for French far-right

Veteran French far-right politician Marine Le Pen shrugged off another defection from her party to rival Eric Zemmour on Sunday amid an increasingly bitter battle ahead of presidential elections in April.

Published: 23 January 2022 16:35 CET

Le Pen shrugs off yet another defection in battle for French far-right

French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour (R) next to French lawyer Gilbert Collard following his defection from National Assembly. Photo: Bertrand Guar/AFP

One-time Le Pen ally and confidant Gilbert Collard formally announced Saturday that he was joining Zemmour’s team and appeared at a rally alongside the anti-Islam writer and pundit in the south of France.

The European MP follows two other anti-immigration hardliners from Le Pen’s National Rally party to join Zemmour in the last week: fellow MEP Jerome Riviere and senior party official Damien Rieu.

“I don’t pay much attention to all these little manoeuvres between politicians because all of my energies are directed towards the issues of French people,” Le Pen told France 3 television on Sunday.

A new poll published on Saturday showed President Emmanuel Macron winning the first round of the election on April 10 with 25 percent, followed by Le Pen and right-winger Valerie Pecresse from the Republicans party on 15.5 percent each.

The poll by the Ipsos-Sopra Steria group, with a large sample size of 12,500 people, showed Zemmour trailing in fourth place on 13 percent.

The top two candidates in the first round go through to a run-off, where Macron was seen winning against Le Pen by 57-43 percent and against Pecresse by a narrower 54-46 percent, the poll showed.

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‘Kebab shop’

Zemmour is hoping that a string of defections this month, including by the former number two of the Republicans party, Guillaume Peltier, can help him reinvigorate a campaign that is seen by analysts as stagnating.

Speaking in Cannes on Saturday night in front of a crowd of around 4,000 people, he focused on his core issues of crime, Islam and what he sees as out-of-control immigration.

“I don’t want a kebab shop in every village,” he declared.

Le Pen said it was “coherent” that the defectors from her party had turned against her as she seeks to present a more moderate image to the electorate.

“Since the start of the campaign they have criticised my decision to make purchasing power my priority,” she said, contrasting it with Zemmour’s relentless campaigning on immigration and Islam.

“They criticise me for not wanting to get involved in the mad idea of a religious war (in France), or a civil war which they almost seem to want for the country,” Le Pen added.

In a statement last week announcing his decision to join Zemmour, Rieu claimed that Le Pen’s party was “no longer able to motivate our voters” and “lots of senior figures and grassroots campaigners don’t believe in it any more.”

But Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that Le Pen remained “the most dangerous person for the country” as Macron’s biggest rival.

“If she ever wins powers that it will lead to national division, then civil war,” he warned.

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE