Marion Marechal, a vice-president of Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest! party, has called for French conservatives and populists to form a united coalition in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Marechal, along with two other vice-presidents of Reconquest!, has called for populists and conservatives to unite in a coalition to oppose left-wing and centrist parties, stating she was willing to hold coalition talks with the National Rally (RN) led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen.
“This choice does not call into question the singularity of our line and our strategy, which cannot be found anywhere else in the political spectrum,” Marechal said in a statement alongside Nicholas Bay and Guillaume Peltier ahead of the June parliamentary elections, Reuters reports.
According to the statement signed by the three politicians, regardless of if Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen win the presidential race on Sunday, there is a need to unite conservative and populist forces in the French parliament.
“The election of a new majority in the National Assembly will be of crucial importance for the future of our country,” the three stated and added, “It will be necessary to be able to build a presidential majority around Marine Le Pen or to impose a cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron in order to avoid that he has full legislative powers for the next five years.”
According to Marechal, Bay and Peltier, a united right-wing coalition would push for a “legislative agenda a policy of firm migration, a hardening of penal policy, a real economic patriotism, (…) support for families and the birth rate (…) or the rejection of any further surrender of sovereignty to the European Union.”
Whether or not Ms Le Pen would consent to a grand coalition of the right if she wins the presidency is unclear, as she has previously stated she has no desire to govern alongside her niece or Mr Zemmour, who won seven per cent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election.
Ms Marechal, who served as an MP under Le Pen until 2017 as a member of the Front National (FN), joined the Zemmour campaign last month but had expressed that she would not be voting for her aunt as early as January of this year.
Le Pen reacted to Marechal’s comments by saying, “I have a special story with Marion because I raised her with my sister for the first few years of her life, so obviously it’s brutal, it’s violent, it’s difficult for me.”