In a televised interview, conservative MEP Marion Maréchal announced that she intends to launch a new political initiative within the next few weeks, in order to occupy a space that is still vacant on the right of the French political spectrum.
The MEP, who was elected on June 9th as head of the list for Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête party, is now independent—following her departure from the party over major strategic disagreements. She now sits with three other colleagues elected with her in the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament.
Her position is highly scrutinised, given that she left Zemmour without returning to her original party, the Rassemblement National (RN). Maréchal was asked to comment on Michel Barnier’s government, which was formed in mid-September and which some commentators have described as a ‘right-wing’ government. For her, this is merely a “transitional phase,” from which “she expects nothing.”
Her objective remains the one that guided her at the time of the crisis that led her to leave Reconquête: “I want the national camp to win,” she explained on BFM TV. This requires a successful coalition between the various parties on the French Right, a ‘union of the Rights’ along the lines of what exists in Italy, and which Maréchal can observe through her husband, Vincenzo Sofo, a member of Fratelli d’Italia.
I want to work only towards this in the coming years and I hope that this coalition can come to power on the condition that it learns the lessons of the failure of the legislative elections, namely that today we don’t bring together enough French people.
When asked about a possible return to the RN, the party she left in 2017, Maréchal’s unambiguous response was that there was no question of it. However, she rejected the idea of “systematic disagreements” with the RN of Jordan Bardella and her aunt Marine Le Pen. Instead, she spoke of “singularities,” particularly on “economic and societal” issues, which she wants to be able to defend in complete independence. Marion Maréchal is less statist and less interventionist on economic issues than the RN, and more conservative on societal issues such as gay marriage, gender ideology and abortion.
The RN has been accused of abandoning these issues as non-priorities. MP Sébastien Chenu recently declared that the RN would not “overturn” the existing laws on the matters of LGBT rights, abortion or medically assisted reproduction.
It is not yet known what form the “new political initiative” announced by Marion Maréchal will take, although it will probably be the birth of a political grouping independent of the RN under her leadership.
