Concerns at the National Assembly (RN). After a discreet start to the campaign officially started on September 12, 2021 in Fréjus, it seems that Marine Le Pen is experiencing some difficulties in injecting new dynamics into her movement. It must be said that the polemicist Éric Zemmour, who poaches on his ideological lands, is everywhere in the media. Deprived of daily broadcast on CNews after the decision of the CSA to count down his speaking time, he is a "candidate for debate" to "impose" his favorite themes of immigration and Islam on television sets. Thursday, September 23, he is even the guest of a controversial debate broadcast on BFMTV and RMC even though the hypothetical candidate has still not officially declared himself.Each conference organized around his book turns into a political rally. "The National Gathering finds itself today in a very uncomfortable position, because the former television columnist has been creating suspense for weeks around his candidacy and arousing the attention of the media", underlines Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist specialist of the French extreme right, requested by France 24.  

🔴 WHY WE NEED TO DEBATE FACING ZEMMOUR 🔴



It is a debate of ideas between two visions of #France.


That of #Zemmour, counter-revolutionary and where citizens are not equal vis-à-vis that of @JLMelenchon who advocates equal rights for all!

#TPMP #MelenchonVsZemmour pic.twitter.com/mpIGXkA6Yv

- Alexis Corbière (@alexiscorbiere) September 22, 2021

Seven months before the presidential election, the standard bearer and now ex-president of the RN can not turn to the polls to find some comfort either.

Its voting intentions continue to unscrew, to the point of now falling below the 20% mark, according to several barometers.

The Harris Interactive study for Challenges published on Tuesday credits it with 18% or 19% of voting intentions, while it still gathered around 28% before the summer, or 10 points less, lost in a few months.

It's also less than its 21.3% in the first round of 2017.  

"Who cares about Eric Zemmour!"

At the RN, we keep repeating that the Éric Zemmour threat is not one. "Nothing bothers me, I am in my third presidential election and it gives me a great experience in this area, the campaign is long," she said during a trip on Tuesday to the Tour-du -Pin (Isère). "I have the calm of the old troops." The same serenity displayed among party officials. "Who cares about Eric Zemmour! Yes, our activists appreciate him, but his speeches do not make him a good president for all that. Marine Le Pen is not content to state the problems, she, it provides solutions, "said Julien Sanchez, spokesperson for the RN, contacted by France 24.  

"I've been in politics for several decades," says Philippe Olivier, adviser to Marine Le Pen. "I saw third providential men parade. Not one came to the end. There was (Jean-Pierre) Chevènement who was supposed to make 14% in the polls, who only made 5 ... More recently, we predicted that the lists of yellow vests were going to cut us off from the croupiers. In the end, they did practically nothing. We are fairly quiet at the RN. "  

However, we must believe that Marine Le Pen is not as serene as she claims to be. The one who since the launch of her campaign admits to favoring trips to the provinces alongside a handful of journalists from the regional daily press to favor the quality of the exchanges seems to have changed her mind. Thursday, the day of the debate between Mélenchon and Zemmour, she chose to invite the national press to her trip to Moselle, Hayange and Metz. She will address one of the questions dear to the party and to Eric Zemmour, national preference. Gone are the pleasant meetings in small groups on technical subjects? "Not at all", we defend ourselves at the RN. "The strategy of sometimes mixing technical travel with the PQR and sometimes inviting the national press on major campaign themes will be done according to the situation, "explains his advisor Philippe Olivier to France 24.  

Real warning signs 

Since the start of his campaign, "his strategy, which consists of expressing himself in the regional media and away from the Parisian press which is openly hostile to him, has been rather well regarded," Jean-Yves Camus points out to France 24. " The one who showed flaws in technical files during the debate against (Emmanuel) Macron seeks to show that it is gaining in control, in particular by going this week to a sawmill in Isère. "  

Still, "Marine Le Pen's campaign is showing real warning signs," notes Olivier Rouquan, professor of political science and associate researcher at the Center for Science Studies and Research (Cersa).

"With her strategy of 'at the same time' which combines a moderate discourse with themes dear to the far right on immigration, she ends up losing everyone a bit and weakening. Today, some of her sympathizers are found more in the speech of Eric Zemmour, in particular on immigration ", continues the researcher of Cersa who remains however cautious.

"There is also a runaway effect around Zemmour whose scores to this day remain too low to win." 

Low mobilization and low accounts 

After the rout of the RN in the departmental and regional elections, it nevertheless seems that the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen is slow "to mobilize her electorate. She does not manage to instill momentum. And I doubt that her campaign poster on freedoms does not succeed in convincing the electorate ready to leave it ", adds Olivier Rouquan. 

🇫🇷 “Freedoms, cherished freedoms”, it is not a slogan, it is the wish that I express for all of us, it is what I will never stop fighting for.

# Présidentielle2022



Check out our first presidential campaign poster 👉🏻 https://t.co/74vqWxcv77 pic.twitter.com/UYfklIpxsP

- Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) September 9, 2021

Finally, it is not easy to fully mobilize the troops when the accounts are at their lowest.

The party's finances are still in the red - with a debt of 22.9 million euros in 2019 - which limits the possibilities for the National Rally to find loans from banks. 

Marine Le Pen has also recently "alerted" Emmanuel Macron on the difficulties of financing the presidential campaign, where the candidate can no longer borrow money from non-European banks - as the RN had done in Russia for municipal authorities in 2014 - nor to private companies. 

The bank of democracy, route of a proposal by #Bayrou buried since.


Struggling to raise funds for his campaign, @MLP_officiel wrote to Emmanuel Macron to request new funding modalities #RN https://t.co/a97Vce5v11 via @publicsenat

- Perrine Tarneaud (@Perrine_tarneau) September 17, 2021

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