On April 10, "being in front of Zemmour is still important for the future. Finishing last in the straight line can be hard", underlines an LR executive.

"And if we are on a single-digit score, it will rock hard," he worries, while the party will have a hundred seats of outgoing deputies to defend in the June legislative elections.

In the latest opinion polls, Valérie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour are neck and neck around 10% of voting intentions in the first round of the presidential election, behind Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Valérie Pécresse, "we are going to kill her with Emmanuel Macron, I think she is fragile", trumpeted a pillar of Reconquest!

from January in front of the press.

Eric Zemmour often believes that she has "no political space", calling her a "clone" of the president-candidate.

Sunday at the Trocadéro, in front of tens of thousands of supporters, he launched a new appeal with his foot to the right-hand wing of LR by applauding Eric Ciotti, François-Xavier Bellamy, Laurent Wauquiez, Nadine Morano, as well as the RN Jordan Bardella .

The first four "did not react" explicitly to protest, "it's not trivial", estimates an elected LR.

The candidate Reconquest!

to the French presidential Eric Zemmour in a meeting at the Trocadero in Paris, March 27, 2022 JULIEN DE ROSA AFP / Archives

A few days earlier, Eric Ciotti had said he was "proud to be committed behind Valérie Pécresse" and "good for the Republicans", during a debate organized by the conservative weekly Current Values ​​on March 22.

But he, like Mr. Bellamy, have already said that they would rather vote Zemmour than Macron in the second round – the question had embarrassed Valérie Pécresse, who said in an interview last week that she had "allies who do not necessarily all think like me".

Trocadero

And the Trocadéro, place of the meeting of François Fillon in 2017, was yet another glance at the right: the same morning, seven elected LR (including its president Christian Jacob) published a forum to ensure that "Zemmour, it is not our Trocadéro" because he "does not embody the right patriot, Gaullist, republican and attached to the Judeo-Christian roots of France".

In the home stretch, Valérie Pécresse decided to go more than ever on the ground of the sovereign, after having faced Eric Zemmour in a very lively televised debate.

"I don't think he's in a position to win," she booed at the Current Values ​​debate.

For the moment, the promises of "recomposition" of Eric Zemmour come up against the absence of a strong LR rally since the ex-number 2 of the party Guillaume Peltier, and the very uncertain future of Reconquest!

to the legislative ones.

The radical positions of the former polemicist on Ukrainian refugees or the creation of a ministry of "remigration" could also be repulsive: for Mr. Ciotti, it is a "slogan" which "means nothing" .

Deputy LR Eric Ciotti during a debate organized by the French weekly Valeurs Actuelles in Paris, March 22, 2022 Alain JOCARD AFP / Archives

On the Zemmour side, some see further.

"The presidential election is the fundamental, decisive stage, but it is a long-term construction of course", recently affirmed Marion Maréchal, who obtained from Reconquête fifty nominations for his relatives in the legislative elections.

And at LR, some are worried.

"The transgression, on the right it was Zemmour who preempted it. We don't have much left," sighs a member of Valérie Pécresse's team.

If it fails on April 10, "I can see a decomposition / recomposition, it will be very very hard", predicts support.

French presidential candidate LR Valérie Pécresse at the FNSEA congress in Besançon, March 30, 2022 SEBASTIEN BOZON AFP

While some LRs already assume a penchant for Emmanuel Macron, "it will be complicated for those who are a little hesitant on a very hard right and his acquaintances with Zemmour", adds an elected official.

Meanwhile, the National Rally is watching these procrastination from afar.

"The recomposition, 2027, I don't care at all. My subject is to ensure that we can save France in three weeks", had launched on March 22 interim president Jordan Bardella.

© 2022 AFP