Coup de Pau for Marine Le Pen.
The candidate of the National Rally has been waving the red flag for several days concerning her supposed difficulty in collecting the 500 sponsorships necessary to run for president;
and she did not expect to receive that of the boss of the MoDem, François Bayrou, mayor of Pau.
“I have indeed decided to take my share of this burden.
It does not correspond to the dream that I have in my political commitment, but I will give my signature to Marine Le Pen”, thus declared this close support of Emmanuel Macron, Sunday February 27 during the “Grand Jury” RTL-LCI Le Figaro.
At Le Parisien, Marine Le Pen assures that the centrist had not warned her beforehand of his gesture.
"I cannot defend in front of my fellow citizens of all opinions the idea that the President of the French Republic would be elected in an election from which the main candidates would be excluded", continued François Bayrou, at the origin of an initiative of "sponsorship bank" bringing together, according to him, nearly 400 elected officials ready to sponsor candidates in difficulty.
“Despite our political disagreements, his approach aims to bring our democracy to life: I invite the mayors of France to sponsor all the candidates in difficulty”, commented Le Pen on Twitter, thanking Bayrou for his gesture.
“We did not expect it, but Bayrou is a true democrat, and he has always shown this attachment to democracy.
He is faithful to his line of conduct", comments Philippe Olivier, special adviser to Marine Le Pen, recalling that on several occasions the latter had welcomed Bayrou's proposals, such as when he had proposed to create a "bank of democracy to participate in the financing of political life.
"The political risk is that Le Pen, Zemmour or Mélenchon have been prevented", slips a minister
At the last count, there were less than a hundred sponsorships left for the frontist leader.
Sunday, his entourage refused to claim victory, even after the boost from Bayrou.
Will this position unlock the RN counter?
Mystery.
For many observers, however, there seems to be little doubt that it will obtain them, even if competition from Éric Zemmour, as well as the reduction in the number of its local elected officials since 2017, may have contributed to making this task more difficult.
But how to interpret the gesture of François Bayrou, who will not fail to call to block the road to Le Pen in a possible second round against Emmanuel Macron?
Especially when some, on the right and on the left, accuse the majority of "raising the extremes" to ensure re-election.
“Difficult, as he said, to discard himself.
The political risk is that Le Pen, Zemmour or Mélenchon have been prevented, ”slips a minister who exchanged with the mayor of Pau, following his Sunday announcement.
“We do not need life insurance, and above all we do not choose our opponents”, objects for his part Roland Lescure, deputy (LREM) for French people abroad.
He thinks “personally that if the FN
(RN)
and Éric Zemmour are not able to recover 500 sponsorships out of 42,000 possible when even Nathalie Arthaud (LO) has them, that says more about them than about anyone. else”.
"But I understand that we do not want such candidates, high in the polls, to be absent from the election," he said.
It will just be more complicated for the latter to set themselves up as candidates for the anti-system, if it is the very system that will have, in the end, allowed them to participate in the competition.
