Paris (AFP)

About sixty executives of Debout la France have left the sovereignist party since the resignation of number two in the movement of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, and will form a satellite collective of the National Rally, the dissident activists announced Wednesday evening.

The vice-president of DLF Philippe Torre also announced, in another press release, his resignation from the list he was to lead to the regional elections in Hauts-de-France, on the basis of a "shared observation" with the former spokesperson and number 2 of the party, Jean-Philippe Tanguy.

The latter and other loyal lieutenants announced on November 22 their rallying to Marine Le Pen's candidacy for the Elysee Palace, criticizing a strategy of "isolation" which leads to a "dead end".

Since then, around fifty local DLF officials have left the party, as well as around ten national executives, including vice-president Anne-Sophie Frigout and DLF youth president Alexandre Sabatou, say the rebels in a press release. to AFP.

The dissidents, joined by the former campaign manager for the DLF European elections, Thomas Ménagé, who left after the election, will "launch at the end of January a sovereignist Gaullist collective, which, like the Popular Right, will work with the RN and all the goodwill ".

The former Sarkozyst minister Thierry Mariani had relaunched in June 2019 his current of the popular Right by satellite of the RN, to attract those from LR who want to work with the RN without necessarily joining it.

For his part, DLF vice-president Philippe Torre accuses Mr. Dupont-Aignan of being in a "denial of reality".

He deplores "the continuation of the strategy of isolation of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (which) aims to maintain at all costs this candidacy" for the presidential election, "while his only objective would in fact be quite simply to be re-elected deputy in his constituency of Essonne ".

The former ally of Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election in 2017 has chosen this time to go it alone for 2022, in order to offer the French "the choice" and escape a Macron-Le Pen duel.

© 2020 AFP