Inserted in the National Rally since 2014, Edwige Diaz, 34, has experienced a meteoric rise within the RN.
After a first defeat in the 2017 legislative elections in this eleventh constituency of the Gironde, land of "yellow vests", Edwige Diaz largely won on June 19 against the outgoing LREM deputy.
Reputed to be a hard worker, she criss-crossed this rural territory to infuse her ideas on national priorities, the fight against insecurity or even “work value”.
The meeting was first agreed in her village of Saint-Savin, where she will continue to live, even if she has just resigned from her position as opposition municipal councilor, to respect the law on the non-accumulation of mandates.
But, a last-minute "Visio de Marine" having been added to her agenda, it was finally in Bordeaux, in a café near the regional council where she sat "within the first opposition group to Alain Rousset", that the new RN deputy gives us an appointment on Monday morning.
Edwige Diaz, 34, elected to the National Assembly with 58.7% in the eleventh constituency of the Gironde on June 19, is a woman in a hurry.
She urgently needs to settle logistical details, so as not to have to constantly drag her suitcase behind her, and pay “250 euros for a hotel room under the roof in Paris”.
Because his week will now be organized between the capital and the Gironde.
From Thursday evening to Monday, she will be in her constituency, or in Bordeaux for the plenaries of the regional council, and from Tuesday to Thursday in Paris for the sessions at the Assembly, which will "also free up more time for her to respond to media solicitations,” she acknowledges.
Because Edwige Diaz, who was already spokesperson for Marine Le Pen during the presidential election, is one of those young elected RNs who present well, handle the elements of language to perfection, and are therefore pushed forward on TV sets by a gone in search of demonization.
"Today there is not much that affects me"
We can speak of a meteoric rise for Edwige Diaz, a member of the National Rally (at the time National Front) since 2014, and who has since climbed all the levels.
“I voted for Marine for the first time in the 2012 presidential election, but the real trigger for me was in 2014, when I went to see her at a meeting for the Europeans in Corrèze.
I was able to approach him and gave him my card.
And three weeks later Jacques Colombier [ex-departmental head of the FN in Gironde] called me, that's how it all started.
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Edwige Diaz takes her membership, Jacques Colombier takes her under his wing.
Reputed to be a hard worker, she also knows how to make herself useful.
“He asked me to be on the senatorial list in 2014, I accepted even if there was no issue.
We needed women, rural people, young people… In short, I ticked all the boxes and I accepted to be of service”, she analyzes today with lucidity.
“I have never fallen into victimization because I am a woman,” she adds again, pragmatically.
Her beginnings as a simple activist mainly consisted in distributing leaflets in the markets, calling mayors, in territories of Gironde sometimes frankly hostile to the ideas of the National Front.
Whatever, it allows him to thicken his leather.
“I got hung up on the phone a lot, but it all toughened me up, and now there's not much that affects me.
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“I give my mobile number easily”
At the time of appointing a successor to Colombier, a close friend of Jean-Marie Le Pen, at the head of the Gironde federation, there again she ticks all the boxes.
But this time, it's no longer to make up the numbers.
Edwige Diaz became departmental manager in 2016, joined the national office in 2018, then the executive office, "the highest authority of the party", in 2021. In the circle closest to Marine Le Pen.
And she prepares her weapons on the ground: the 30-year-old is propelled into the territory of Blayais, which has long been a land of the left.
Candidate for the legislative elections in 2017, she lost with 43% against Véronique Hammerer (LREM).
She still bows to the municipal elections of 2020 in Saint-Savin with 43.8% against the outgoing, the PS Alain Renard.
Then, she leads the RN list to the 2021 regionals, where she finishes second behind Alain Rousset, with 19%.
A series of setbacks that do not undermine his determination, because these results mark a progression of the RN in Gironde, particularly in this eleventh rural and wine district, land of "yellow vests", that Edwige Diaz tirelessly crisscrosses and that she has so ended up pulling out.
“Since Marine has been president of the RN, we have been working on our local presence, to counteract the caricatures of lack of seriousness that they are trying to stick to us, she explains.
Me, I give my mobile number easily, it doesn't bother me.
People call me to unblock situations, because in our country there is a social divide, but also a digital divide, and some need help to take steps.
And I move whenever possible, I have no time.
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“When I voted Marine, my hand did not catch fire…”
Edwige Diaz gets up early, “every day between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to do my press review.
“I was passionate about politics, as soon as I started to get into it I started watching all the political shows, following social networks.
I subscribe to all the specialized journals.
During my downtime I listen to BFM or Cnews, it's a pleasure for me.
And I work on all the documents, especially the plans like the Sraddet [Regional plan for development, sustainable development and territorial equality].
I love reading schematics.
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Although a supporter of the ideas of a hard right, she assures that she was not “predestined to become an RN deputy…” Inserted in the UMP (ex-Les Républicains) for a year, she voted for Sarkozy in 2007. "I liked the 'work more to earn more' and the idea of 'Kärcher', but in the end, like many French people, I was disappointed.
In 2012, I discovered the Navy program.
I really liked the “national priority” side, for the French and for companies, the firmness speech with regard to immigration, the value of work.
And when I voted for her, my hand didn't catch fire… I quickly played down the gesture, even if people around me weren't voting for the National Front at the time.
I had a communist grandfather, and my mother voted Hollande in 2012. Well, now they all vote RN.
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"Politics takes up a lot of space, it's a choice that I assume"
Coming from the rural world, she points out that as a child, she was elected to the municipal youth council, in Salles, in the south of Gironde.
“I don't know if that predestined anything, but I've always been interested in others.
In college, I became a class delegate, and at the age of 20 I joined a miscellaneous straight list in Salles, even if, there again, I was mainly there because parity was needed and to lower the average age…” She then entered the University of Bordeaux, where she obtained a master's degree in Spanish.
She shares with Marine Le Pen the passion for cats.
“I have five cats.
A very long time ago I even had to declare myself in breeding because of the number of litters I had had, but it was not a lucrative activity.
“On the professional side, she once set up a business of renting playgrounds for children, with her ex-husband.
Now divorced, childless, she says she is “filled like that.
“Politics takes up a lot of space, it's a choice that I assume.
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"The RN has changed in dimension with these elections"
Especially since her new status as a deputy changes the situation.
“Now I receive invitations, it is easier for me to dialogue with elected officials or with State services.
Last Friday I had two appointments with the chief of staff of the prefect and the sub-prefect of Blaye.
I was able to discuss with the latter the insecurity that strikes the community of communes Latitude Nord Gironde.
And I will have a parliamentary team that also knows the territory.
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With 89 deputies elected to the National Assembly, “the RN has changed in dimension with these elections, it is indisputable” she assures.
And to warn: “The next step is 2027. We want to show citizens that we are capable of embodying the alternative.
We are ready.
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Elections
Legislative elections 2022
Deputy
National Rally (RN)
Bordeaux
Aquitaine