Remote duel between the two far-right candidates for the French presidential election.
Éric Zemmour is holding a meeting in Lille on Saturday February 5.
At the same time, Marine Le Pen found her supporters in Reims.
Promised sworn, the timing, almost simultaneous, of the two gatherings is a coincidence, we plead in the two camps, which on this occasion target two different enemies: Emmanuel Macron for Marine Le Pen, and Valérie Pécresse for Éric Zemmour.
"Serenity" by Marine Le Pen
"Weary of noise and fury", Marine Le Pen intends to insist on "concrete solutions" during her "presidential convention" in Reims, where 3,000 activists are expected.
Despite the departure of three MEPs and a few regional advisers at Éric Zemmour, the time is for "efficiency" and "serenity", affirms the candidate of the National Rally, in second position in the polls behind Emmanuel Macron and just ahead of Valérie Pécresse.
A video message of support from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who received it in the fall, could be broadcast in Reims as a pledge of "seriousness".
As for Éric Zemmour, "he is behind, he is not qualified, we are not going to outbid him", swears his camp, who seeks more to wake up the duel of 2017 against Emmanuel Macron.
The RN candidate could not help but attack her rival in Le Figaro again, reproaching him for his "communitarianism" and attracting "sulphurous" characters, "come and then left" from the former National Front : "traditionalist Catholics", "pagans and some Nazis".
Saturday morning, she suggested to her rival to "clean up", citing the ultra-right movement Les Zouaves, accused of having attacked activists from SOS Racisme at the meeting of Éric Zemmour in Villepinte on December 5.
Demonstrations in Lille against Éric Zemmour
For his part, Éric Zemmour is holding a meeting at the Grand Palais in Lille, a meeting he hopes will be a show of force.
Around 8,000 supporters are expected there.
A few hundred people gathered against the coming of the Reconquest candidate!
at the end of the morning in the center of the northern city, including the socialist mayor of the city, Martine Aubry.
To prevent "any risk of excesses and clashes", between 250 and 300 members of the police will be mobilized as reinforcements, "a substantial device but not of exceptional magnitude either", indicated a police source to the AFP.
Éric Zemmour, who claims not to be at "war" against Marine Le Pen, should focus his intervention on purchasing power.
He also intends to target Valérie Pécresse, whose dynamic initiated in December after the LR congress frayed in January.
"She is the most fragile" among the contenders in the second round, justifies the camp of the polemicist candidate, who multiplies on social networks the attacks against the president of Île-de-France.
Emmanuel Macron's candidacy still awaited
On the left, Anne Hidalgo, whose difficult campaign is called into question by PS executives, met at the end of the morning a national support committee chaired by former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Fabien Roussel is holding a big meeting in Marseille on Sunday, his first since the publication of his program "France happy days" on January 24.
In the meantime, the campaign is still suspended on the announcement of the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron, who still explained a few days ago "to be obsessed that the acute phase of the epidemic and the peak of the current geopolitical crisis are behind us" before officially launching.
The Head of State is expected Monday in Russia to meet Vladimir Putin and Tuesday in Kiev to discuss with his Ukrainian counterpart.
What delay a little more the start of this campaign.
With AFP
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