Disagreements assumed, but support displayed all the same. Traveling to Béziers, Friday, January 7, the candidate of the National Rally (RN) for the presidential election, Marine Le Pen, officially received the sponsorship of the mayor of the city, Robert Ménard, despite the criticisms formulated by the latter to the against the member for Pas-de-Calais. “We don’t have to agree on everything to work together”, declared at a press conference the city councilor, who says he now has ” much less “ disagreements with Mme Le Pen.
“I had unfair words towards you (…), but at the same time things have changed. The National Rally is not the National Front ”, added Mr. Ménard, while specifying: “A few years ago you were more divisive than you are. “ He also praised the fact that, according to him, « Marine [Le Pen] is doing a very different campaign from 2017, it has taken on a different dimension, it better embodies the presidential function ”.
At the beginning of September, on the set of BFM-TV, the former president of Reporters Without Borders had already returned in length to the doubts which had been able to embrace him concerning the RN candidate. “When you say things that are unrealistic, that you have a sectarian attitude, you say to yourself: “Basically, this party, he does not want to win.” And there, I see her more open to others, more reasonable. “ The city council of Béziers, supported by the RN, had also questioned “The entourage” by Marine Le Pen: “She has friends who have been with her for years, an omnipresent family. These people have to protect her, but the amount of nonsense they say… that’s a real problem for her. “
“Robert had harsh words for me”
During his trip on Friday, Marine Le Pen returned to these remarks against him. “Robert had harsh words for me, but you have to accept it” and “To be able to pass above oneself to set up the conditions for the gathering”, she added. “We can work together when we have disagreements”, added Mme Le Pen, while repeating wanting a government “National unity, which presupposes disagreements”. “My goal is not to look for clones, it is to convince beyond” of the RN, a party to which Mr. Ménard never joined.
Friday, however, they did not hide their differences, for example on the vaccination pass, supported by Mr. Ménard and contested by Mr.me Le Pen, or on political divisions. “Me, I believe in a right – left divide”, said Robert Ménard, defender of a “Union of rights”. ” Me no “, replied the far-right candidate. The mayor of Béziers has also reiterated his wish for a meeting in February between Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, so that they agree to withdraw in favor of the best placed.
Emmanuel Macron, “an arsonist”
The RN candidate then implied the need for a withdrawal from the Reconquest candidate! in favor of itself. “The French have the right to a choice, between the national vision and the globalist vision”, she argued. To which Eric Zemmour, traveling to Châteaudun (Eure-et-Loir) on Friday, replied that there was “No monopoly of the national candidacy, of the anti-immigration candidacy, or of the candidacy of the right”. “There is no birthright or divine right”, he said, asked about the words of Marine Le Pen.
The member for Pas-de-Calais also returned to the words of Emmanuel Macron, who said, during an interview with Parisian, to want “Piss off” those not vaccinated against Covid-19. “Having an arsonist who comes to blow up the debate in a way with words that are very violent does not appear to me likely to improve the solutions to get out of the health crisis”, she lamented. “Is it useful? The answer is no. Is it effective? The answer is no “, ruled the RN candidate, adding: “When we are faced with a crisis, whatever it is, what we must seek is the unity of the country, it is in the unity of the country that we resolve crises (…), and not in the division. “
Another target of the RN candidate during this trip to Béziers: Valérie Pécresse and her remarks Thursday on her desire to “Bring out the Kärcher” for “Clean up the quarters”. For Marine Le Pen, it is a “Extremely weak argument”, Who ” put the light “ on the ” broken promises “ of the government in which the Republican candidate participated. “She draws a little from us, a little from Nicolas Sarkozy, she does not have a personal thought”added Mme Le Pen.