Presidential 2022: the risky bet of Marion Maréchal at Eric Zemmour – Le Monde

Now is the time for Marion Maréchal. “When France makes an appointment, we don’t procrastinate, we go! So here I am! », she launched from the platform of the Zenith in Toulon, Sunday March 6, rallying Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!). But many wonder, even those close to the young woman, what she is doing in this galley. The war in Ukraine and the indulgence shown by the nationalist candidate for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, have lowered voting intentions in his favour. The speech of the former deputy of Vaucluse was not broadcast on any television channel, because of the speaking time of Eric Zemmour already elapsed. ” I do not understand. Neither the place nor the timing,” whispers his friend François de Voyer.

In recent days, Marion Maréchal seemed to have her back to the wall. While she had left politics in 2017, dropping her teams in the midst of legislative in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, she very badly managed her return, in January, clumsily distilling small confidences, without deciding, ensuring that politics “tickled her”, but she didn’t want “recreating family fractures”. She would not support her aunt, Marine Le Pen, she warned, however, despite her promise to go to “best placed”. The element of surprise has since evaporated; his rallying was no longer in doubt. Pressed by the Zemmour team to speed up on the grounds that“there is a campaign to be waged”, Marion Maréchal actually had no choice. “I’m not going to lie to you, it was difficult to make this decision”, she launched on Sunday.

Fascination for Putin

Ideological springs pushed her to take the plunge. Her political line leads her to Eric Zemmour, to whom she is much closer than to Marine Le Pen: traditionalist Catholic, identity-minded, reactionary on social issues, liberal in economics, she shares with him her obsession for Islam and immigration. She traveled to Hungary with Eric Zemmour, their common model of an illiberal state. “We like each other, the pre-candidate had said after a lunch with her and members of the Hungarian government. We’ve been seeing each other face-to-face for years. »

She shares with him, and for a long time, the same fascination for Vladimir Putin, whom she defends at all times. “What is certain is that Mr. Putin is a patriot. He defends the interests of his country. And I have to say it works pretty well, said, in February 2014, the young deputy on i-Télé. Russia, contrary to popular belief, is not a dictatorship. » A regular guest of the Russian Embassy in Paris, she went to the Yalta Economic Forum in Crimea in 2019 – the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 – after holding a conference in Saint Petersburg, and tied Moscow strong friendships with oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

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