Posted Sep 27, 2022, 5:51 PMUpdated on Sep 28, 2022 at 9:01 am
Marion Maréchal smiles. The vice-president of Reconquest, the party of Eric Zemmour, welcomed with undisguised satisfaction the victory of Giorgia Meloni last Sunday in Italy. “I’m very happy about it. We have, through Meloni, a model of will that benefits from its coherence, its clarity and its convictions. […] Above all, it is the reward of a strategy, ”she welcomed on RTL.
At the head, with her party Fratelli d’Italia, of a coalition integrating the League of Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia, the movement of Silvio Berlusconi, the future president of the Council embodies a political scheme that Eric Zemmour wishes to duplicate in France. “How not to look at this victory as proof that yes, coming to power is possible,” hoped Eric Zemmour in a press release released as soon as the results were known in Italy. After his failure in the presidential election and his rout in the legislative elections (no deputy), his calls for the union of the rights remain however in vain.
“Taking control of your destiny”
The leaders of Reconquest are not the only ones to have welcomed the victory of Giorgia Meloni. After Sweden, the victory of the right-extreme right alliance gives hope on this side of the Alps, even if the violins are very far from being agreed on how to get there.
At the National Rally (RN), the speech is to the satisfaction. “The Italian people have decided to take their destiny into their own hands by electing a patriotic and sovereignist government,” said Marine Le Pen. But she does not mention the union of rights and even less Reconquest, a party with which she refuses to ally herself, but has called on supporters to join her party. The finalist of the last presidential election has always ruled out any rapprochement with LR.
“Morbid Fascination”
Several leaders of the right-wing party, starting with two LR presidential candidates, Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau, saw in Giorgia Meloni’s victory a signal from Italian voters against Europe and in particular the President of the Commission. , Ursula von der Leyen. A position to follow according to them. “Only a policy of civilization, which defends our borders, our ways of life but also our interests, will allow Europe to respond to the existential anguish of the European peoples”, estimated Bruno Retailleau.
On the other hand, the tone is more critical with Aurélien Pradié, another candidate for the presidency of LR. “Looking at Italy, some say to themselves that the only future of the French right is to become an underling of the restless. It is the morbid fascination of those who, among us, no longer believe in it. They have lost the requirement of Gaullism. I believe it. Rebuilding everything doesn’t scare me,” he said on Twitter. Forza Italia, the most moderate formation of the alliance of transalpine rights, obtained only 8.1% of votes. An unenviable fate.
LR comeback?
The comments of LR executives on the results of the Italian elections show how the party is torn on its political line and that the election of the new president will not solve anything.
The meteoric rise of Fratelli d’Italia, from 4.4% of the vote in the 2018 legislative elections (and 6.45% in the 2019 European elections) to 26% in 2022, suggests to several LR executives that a come- back is possible for the former majority party on the right, rolled out of the presidential election of 2022 (4.8% in the first round for Valérie Pécresse). “For Les Républicains, everything is possible provided you speak to the French instead of speaking for them,” said former Vaucluse deputy Julien Aubert. It remains to find a way to achieve this.
