The last time politician Marion Maréchal ran into Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party, they had a good laugh. It was in front of witnesses, in May, at the Budapest Conservative Political Action Conference, a conservative event organized by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and labeled a "No Woke Zone."
"We didn't reveal our cards, but we didn't avoid each other," Maréchal recalled. Next time, it'll no doubt be for a debate as part of the European election campaign, which the former MP
for the Front National (RN's predecessor) is looking forward to with a vengeance. "It's very special for me," she told Le Monde. "How will I react? I don't really know. I've never found myself in a debate with the RN."
The granddaughter of Front National founder Jean-Marie Le Pen will lead the far-right Reconquête! party in the European elections in June 2024. The announcement was made by the party's leader Eric Zemmour on Wednesday, September 6, in the French newspaper Le Figaro – exactly like Bardella, who, three days earlier, said he would again lead the RN in the European campaign.
Maréchal, a former nationalist and conservative icon, was maligned by her aunt Marine Le Pen when she defended positions for the RN that were described as "rightist" and reactionary. She will go up against the new president of Le Pen's movement, a political newcomer propelled into the limelight in 2018, when Maréchal distanced herself from the family party and public life.
They didn't often cross paths within the RN, but they have done so in the private sphere ever since, for sentimental reasons, Bardella found himself attached to the Le Pen family. Maréchal is striving for the survival of her party, whose candidate Zemmour won 7% of the vote in the 2022 presidential election. Reconquête! is modestly aiming for a score of over 5% in June 2024, which would enable it to send representatives to the European Parliament. Bardella, on the other hand, has no other ambition than first place for the RN.
It's a duel that nobody on the far right wants. Bardella dreams of a face-off with the ruling party, in a European election he wants to turn into a referendum on President Emmanuel Macron's policies. With Maréchal, Reconquête! aims to kill off Les Républicains (LR, right) – after the fiasco of 2019, when LR won just 8.3% of the vote – and establish itself as the key party in a hypothetical union of the right. The two figures share some interests, such as their obsession with questions of national identity, and they avoid making any irremediable attacks at reach. Nonetheless, they will be competing for the far-right electorate, part of the conservative electorate and allies across Europe, in the hope of building a powerful group in Strasbourg.
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