Beyond the little vitriolic phrases and accusations of poaching or maintaining "dangerous liaisons" with neo-Nazi groups, the stakes are high for the standard-bearers of the far right when it totals, according to polls of voting intentions, more than a third of the electorate.
If President Emmanuel Macron, still not declared but the first to have exceeded the 500 sponsorships of elected officials necessary to be a candidate, remains the main target, Ms Le Pen and the ex-polemicist clash in what appears more and more more like a wild primary.
Saturday, Ms. Le Pen, who is credited with around 17 to 18% of voting intentions in the first round against 12 to 14% for Eric Zemmour, brings together some 3,000 people in Reims for a "presidential convention".
The ex-polemicist expects the same day around 8,000 supporters in Lille.
The two public meetings will "be an interesting moment to know if we are facing a primary" between Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour or "two really different candidacies", estimates the pollster Jérôme Sainte-Marie.
In the meantime, the confrontation between the two candidates turns to the settling of accounts.
In an interview with Le Figaro on Thursday, the candidate for the National Rally denounced the "communitarianism" of Eric Zemmour, around which she believes she finds "a series of chapels", "came and then left" of the former National Front: "There to traditional Catholics, pagans and some Nazis".
"I am tired of the noise and the fury", added the one who, beaten in the second round against Emmanuel Macron in 2017, has since launched a refoundation of her party and refocused her speech, which the Zemmour camp accuses her of.
Immediate response in the Zemmour camp, Gilbert Collard, who defected from the RN, judged Friday on RTL "extraordinary to see that Marine Le Pen uses against the Reconquest movement! an insult of the type that the National Rally has suffered for years " .
The candidate Reconquest!
French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour (2nd to r) and far-right MEP Gilbert Collard (g) at the Palais des Victoires in Cannes, in the Alpes-Maritimes, on January 22, 2022 BERTRAND GUAY AFP / Archives
The MEP again joked about the fact that Ms Le Pen "will end up president of SOS Racisme".
For Eric Zemmour, the challenge is to attract the far-right electorate with that located to the right of the Republicans gathered behind Valérie Pécresse, where the other battle is being played out on the right.
While his movement is suspected of attracting a host of extremists including the Parti de la France, founded by former frontists in 2009, Mr. Zemmour defended himself this week, saying he did not associate with "those people". .
"Nazi and anti-Semitic people do not support me, cannot support me since I am of the Jewish faith," he said on LCI on Wednesday.
Duel Hidalgo vs Taubira
On the left, the rivalry is also intensifying, in particular between the socialist Anne Hidalgo, who is around 3% in the polls, and the former Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira (around 5%).
Mistreated in the polls and struggling with internal dissension in the PS, Anne Hidalgo intends to continue on her way at all costs.
The PS candidate for the presidential election and mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo in Paris, February 1, 2022 JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives
"We must not let ourselves be defeated. We must not let ourselves be bludgeoned by a media machine which would mean that we are not legitimate and which would like us to go back to bed", assured the candidate in Blois on Thursday evening.
In an interview with Liberation, Ms. Hidalgo believes that the French "waited all five years for an advance of the left leg of the Head of State after the abolition of the ISF and the decline of the APL. It never came " .
She also rejected any idea of a "rally" with Ms. Taubira, who did not capitalize on her victory in the popular primary and the failure of the rally on the left.
Meanwhile, the leader of insubordinate France Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who leads the race in the lead on the left around 10% of the voting intentions in the first round, went to Le Mans on Friday to commemorate the national day of memories of the trafficking and slavery, while the communist Fabien Roussel went to Marseille in the evening to meet high school students before a weekend meeting.
PCF candidate for the French presidential election Fabien Roussel in Paris, February 2, 2022 Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT AFP
At this stage of the campaign, nearly 4 out of 10 French people do not yet know who to vote for in the first round, and among them 2 out of 10 could abstain, notes a Kantar Public-Epoka study published on Friday.
© 2022 AFP