The only novelty in the race for the Elysée, the former editorial writer for Le Figaro and CNews has aroused immense media interest, fueled by his multiple provocations.

"I will be in the second round. Then I will be either President of the Republic or leader of the opposition", still claimed Eric Zemmour at the beginning of April, repeating that his rival Marine Le Pen had "no chance" of the win against Emmanuel Macron.

But after having brushed against and then overtaken the RN candidate in the polls in the fall, brought together thousands of supporters in his volcanic meetings, the 63-year-old identity candidate fell back to earth by finishing with 7.07% of the vote, when Marine Le Pen collected 23.15% and qualified for the second round.

His legislative ambitions were also stopped dead in the first round on Sunday.

He himself was eliminated in the 4th constituency of Var, where he gathered 23.19% of the vote, just 1.5 points behind the RN candidate.

At the national level, Reconquest!

gathered 4.24% of the vote against 18.68% for the RN.

"Dead end"

His main lieutenants, whose faces lined the posters of Reconquest!

in France, also fell on Sunday, like the former number two of LR Guillaume Peltier, outgoing deputy in Loir-et-Cher, or the host of the youth branch of Reconquête!, Stanislas Rigault, in Vaucluse, who had as a substitute the former FN deputy Marion Maréchal.

"Eric Zemmour's strategy is a dead end because it is caricatural, brutal," said Jordan Bardella on Monday.

"The rallies of the RN towards Reconquest!, that is to say in fact ten people, had zero impact", according to the interim president of the RN who criticizes Eric Zemmour "for having completely omitted the daily life of the French and worry about the end of the month", speaking only of the "end of France".

Mr. Zemmour essentially campaigned on the conspiracy theory of the "great replacement" of European populations by a population of foreign origin or to say that Islam and Islamism are "the same thing".

Reconquest!

did not prevent the RN from qualifying "in winnable constituencies", according to Mr. Bardella, even if Marine Le Pen had refused any agreement with Eric Zemmour in the legislative elections.

Far from hindering it, Mr. Zemmour "helped the RN to appear refocused" by its "ideological radicalism" while providing it with a reservoir of voices, analyzes political scientist Jean-Yves Camus.

- "To build" -

Reconquest!

also "made it possible to clarify the internal landscape at the RN" where several officials, such as MEP Nicolas Bay, were already on the way out, notes Mr. Camus.

The objective now remains the structuring of Reconquest!

in a lasting political movement to lead it to the European elections of 2024 where it has more chances, due to the proportional vote, of obtaining elected representatives.

"We have installed a new political force" of around 130,000 claimed members but "we have to build everything", assured AFP before the first round, Nicolas Bay.

The leader of the far-right "Reconquest!"

Eric Zemmour makes a speech in front of his supporters on the evening of the results of the legislative elections in Cogolin (south of France) on June 12, 2022 Valery HACHE AFP

"A movement was born six months ago. It has already encountered a thousand obstacles" but "it held firm and settled everywhere in France. (...) The Reconquest will remain a duty. Forward!", has tweeted Sunday evening Eric Zemmour, who chairs the party and does not intend, according to those around him, to resume his show on CNews or his work at Figaro.

"Seeing Mélenchon's far left and Macron's center left largely dominate the election, I tell myself that we have a lot of construction work to do," said Marion Maréchal, who did not show up on Monday. due to pregnancy and gave birth on Friday to a second daughter named Clotilde.

To do this, the young party can already count, with the 964,868 votes garnered on Sunday, on 1.582 million euros of public money each year since each vote won gives the right to 1.64 euros per year.

© 2022 AFP