“It’s brutal, it’s violent. » Interviewed on CNews, Friday January 28, Marine Le Pen said how much she did not appreciate that her niece, Marion Maréchal, declared ” reflect “ to support Eric Zemmour in the presidential election, as reported The Parisian, Thursday. “It is a political misunderstanding, because she had indicated that she would support the best placed. (…) I am the best placed in the second round [par rapport à Eric Zemmour] », continued the candidate of the National Rally (RN).
According to the latest wave of the Ipsos-Sopra Steria opinion poll for The world, the Jean Jaurès Foundation and the Cevipof, produced via the Internet from January 14 to 17, Marine Le Pen would be chosen by 15.5% of voters in the first round, tied with the right-wing candidate, Valérie Pécresse (margin of error plus or minus 0.8 point), compared to 13% for Eric Zemmour (margin of error of plus or minus 0.7 point).
“If I support Eric, it’s not just to pop a head and say hello”, had said M.me Marshal to Parisian, judging that the Reconquest candidate had done “a lot of progress in posture, tone, seriousness” since entering the campaign on November 30, 2021. “I don’t know who is best. The campaign is still long. Eric Zemmour has a greater margin of progression among the working classes and abstainers than Marine Le Pen among the upper classes”, she analyzed.
Marion Maréchal and Eric Zemmour had participated, at the end of September 2021, in the “demography summit” of the Hungarian far-right leader, Viktor Orban, in Budapest. On this occasion, she had already declared that the “second round scenario” of 2022 was not played.
“The bib and the checkbook”
Marion Maréchal distances herself from her aunt barely a week after the rallying to Mr. Zemmour of Jérôme Rivière and Damien Rieu, who came from the RN. “There are always people in a campaign who change sides (…) who have personal ambitions, commented Marine Le Pen on CNews. “But the presidential election is the relationship with the French”, who, according to her, have nothing to do with “campaign vicissitudes”.
Faced with her rival on the far right, she defended that “the French expect solutions, not brutality and violence”. La candidate du RN “feels” that Eric Zemmour and his teams “have the will to [la] make lose ». Returning to her changes of position, particularly on the European Union, Marine Le Pen also pleaded: “I am a pragmatist, not an ideologue. »