This snapshot of Zemmour at Mont-Saint-Michel delights LR and RN – The HuffPost

POLITICS – Bad plan. Eric Zemmour held an outdoor meeting this Saturday, February 19 at the foot of Mont-Saint-Michel. In the photos published by his supporters: tricolor flags galore, a candidate who exalts the “power” of the country with the “most famous rock in France” in the background. But the team of the former essayist also multiplied the wide shots throughout his speech… Letting appear less brilliant images.

Several screenshots are circulating on social networks. They show a few hundred people – 1,000 according to the AFP account, twice as many according to the organizers – gathered in a field, their feet in the mud, far from the effervescent image conveyed by the Zemmour camp.

It was enough to provoke the mocking comments of his political adversaries, close to Marine Le Pen or Valérie Pécresse. A communication squabble that says a lot about the tension that runs through the right 50 days from the presidential electionand at a time when these three competitors are given in a handkerchief by polling institutes.

“Identity rave-party”, flop”, “total flop”…

The deputy Les Républicains Pierre-Henri Dumont was one of the first to draw on social networks. “There are more people at a meeting for a cantonal election” than at that of Eric Zemmour at Mont-Saint-Michel, he quipped at the start of the afternoon, before putting on a layer a few hours later, speaking of an “identity rave-party”.

Same tone for Geoffroy Didier, Valérie Pécresse’s communications director. He evokes a “total flop”. “Everything is fake”, he said, at the former polemicist, a week later the criticized speech of its candidate at the Zénith de Paris. “It’s sure that without Twitter robots there are fewer people,” adds Charles Consigny, the lawyer involved in the LR campaign.

In this context, the troops of Marine Le Pen do not miss the opportunity either. Gilles Plennelle, the president of the Rassemblement national group in Brittany, believes that Eric Zemmour and his new support, Nicolas Bay, flopped “a flop for their meeting at Mont-Saint-Michel”. “The Archangel has never been on the side of the infidels…”, he whistles in reference to the rallying of his former colleague, who was the only one to speak, this Saturday, before the candidate.

The response of the Zemmour camp

How to reach “Reconquest”? In the entourage of the former journalist condemned several times for incitement to hatred, one cries with the bad faith. “Try to be honest for two seconds. We are not bringing any buses, no tickets taken for our activists on our side”, replies Stanislas Rigault, the president of generation Z, also on Twitter. Understand: Marine Le Pen cannot mobilize as much without rallying her support.

Even Olivier Ubéda, the adviser who organizes his gatherings, strives to replicate on social networks. “You have the right to be an activist. Not to manipulate the images”, he says for example to Charles Consigny, support of Valérie Pécresse. And to add, video – advantageous – in support: “2150 people present counted real (sic). We get 25,000 views on the live stream when your candidate gets 242 for her talk at Le Cannet. And I spare you the rest…”

Mocking or vengeful exchanges, it depends, which can be explained, among other things, by a singular political situation on the right of the political spectrum. The three competitors, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse are close in the polls, around 15%, however far behind Emmanuel Macron, just before the home stretch. The next few weeks, and future meetings, promise to be decisive, if not crucial.