Arrived at the National Rally without asking for anything, Andréa Kotarac is about to take everything.
Twenty months ago, the thirty-something still sat on the benches of rebellious France in his native region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Since that date, it is rare to find an initiative of the RN with which it is not associated ... Head of the list in the third largest metropolis of France, in Lyon, during the municipal elections, it is to him that the direction of the
Idée Review,
supposed to be the spearhead of the reflection of the RN MEPs and their allies.
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Co-founder with MEP Hervé Juvin of the young Localist Party - an environmental satellite of the RN supporting the presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen -, the young man has every chance of being soon invested as head of the RN list in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for the next regional ones, without even being a member.
"I asked Marine Le Pen to be a candidate"
, abounds Andréa Kotarac on the set of "Talk Le Figaro" without departing from false naive airs.
SEE ALSO - André Kotarac: "I asked Marine Le Pen to be head of the list for the regional" in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Andréa Kotarac: "I asked Marine Le Pen to be head of the list for the regional" in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes - Watch on Figaro Live
During the announcement in 2019 of his support for the RN list led by Jordan Bardella, ten days before the Europeans, elected officials from the opposition as from the regional majority wondered whether Kotarac had not totally lost the sense of reality.
How else to explain this passage from Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Marine Le Pen?
What is more at a time when the Le Penist movement had nothing obvious to offer it, its list of MEPs having long been stopped.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon has an important place in my political career and my awareness of the world,”
explains Andréa Kotarac.
Unfortunately, after 2017, it took a slope that no longer suited me.
When we were fighting against communitarianism, he demonstrated with the Muslim Brotherhood against Islamophobia.
When we proposed a plan B to review Europe, its head of the list in the European elections Manon Aubry wanted to save it.
When rebellious France attached itself yesterday to firefighters, police officers and territorial agents, today it is no longer a question of police violence. "
At first, I even took him for a leftist
Herve Juvin
Whoever preferred to resign from his mandate as regional councilor
"out of respect"
for the voters, remains freshly received by the troops of the National Rally.
"When, at home, some learned of the arrival of a type of rebellious France, it was not easy for him,"
euphemistically a Lyon party official.
Even among future MEPs, mistrust is in order vis-à-vis the one who has yet to rally them at the key moment:
"At the start, I even took him for a leftist"
, laughs Hervé Juvin, before Kotarac becomes his parliamentary assistant like his best sidekick.
During the municipal campaign in Lyon, local prejudices evaporate.
While others, at the national level, are budding.
The good understanding that the candidate for the Lyon metropolis maintains with the
"Catholic fringe"
of the movement as well as with the entourage of Marion Maréchal on the spot, displeases.
Particularly to a part of the management of the RN - the deputy Bruno Bilde and the mayor of Fréjus, David Rachline, at the head - which counted on this candidate come from the left to precisely marginalize all this small world.
A political antagonism is born vis-à-vis the young defector, to the point of pushing for a time, for the future regional, an alternative RN candidate at the top of the list against Laurent Wauquiez: the regional councilor Alexis Jolly.
At the RN, Marine Le Pen is my only interlocutor, the one for whom I came and for whom I work
Andrea Kotarac
"They remain political friends,"
says
Andréa Kotarac
to
Figaro
.
But I told Marine Le Pen, clan wars don't interest me.
At the RN, she is my only interlocutor, the one for whom I came and for whom I work. "
For the time being, the thirty-something expresses only one wish: to descend into the arena of regional which will be, according to him,
“the aperitif of the presidential election”
.
The former regional elected official - who hopes to become one again - is already scratching his probable rival;
which he accuses of nurturing
"an ambition more presidential than regional".
A November Ifop poll puts the outgoing LR president well ahead in the first round with 31%, against 20% for his RN list.
Whoever sees an opportunity to pose as an alternative continues
: “When Laurent Wauquiez finds masks, he spends 90,000 euros advertising on Facebook to let people know
.
In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, nothing has changed, except the name of the region is now stuck everywhere… ”
A pillar of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's presidential team in 2017, André Kotarac was working on the digital pole of the candidate when he said he had the idea of these simultaneous meetings, by hologram.
“Modi had already done it in India, like Erdogan in Turkey.
But never like that, live, ”
the young man still welcomes.
"For 2022, Marine wants him to have a real place in the system
,
"
slips a relative of the presidential candidate already declared.
SEE ALSO - Andréa Kotarac: "Marine Le Pen has a good chance of being the first President of the French Republic"
Andréa Kotarac: "Marine le Pen has a good chance of being the first President of the French Republic" - Watch on Figaro Live
