MEPs from the National Rally Jérôme Rivière and Gilbert Collard, who joined the far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour last week, were excluded from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, where the RN sits. “The two elected members had been suspended from the group by decision of the bureau” of the ID group, “they have just been excluded by a vote of the group which took place at 4.40 p.m.” RN MEP Philippe Olivier, a close adviser to French presidential RN candidate Marine Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen had castigated Sunday “a drift of mercenary” and called on Jérôme Rivière and Gilbert Collard to give up their mandates as MEPs. The voters who elected them “voted for the ideas of the RN, not for the ideas of Éric Zemmour”, she argued.
More than 21 RN MEPs
These departures bring to 21, instead of 23, the number of RN MEPs in the European Parliament. The RN delegation within the ID group, which was led by Jérôme Rivière, will now be led by Hélène Laporte. Gilbert Collard, contacted by AFP, said he wanted to “challenge” these exclusions within the European authorities.
Marine Le Pen, for her part, is due to meet allied parties in Europe on Friday and Saturday in Madrid, a meeting which follows that of Warsaw in December and ultimately aims to form a common group in the European Parliament, where these parties are divided into two separate groups. The candidate will be accompanied by MEP RN Nicolas Bay, first vice-president of the ID group and cited among those who, at the RN, would be tempted to join Éric Zemmour.