The leader of the Identity–Liberties party in the European Parliament Marion Maréchal has vowed to support Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in the upcoming presidential elections in France.
Maréchal, the heir to the Le Pen family dynasty who infamously broke with her aunt during the 2022 presidential elections to support Reconquest leader Eric Zemmour, has vowed that she will not run as a candidate next year and will support the candidate for the National Rally.
Speaking to broadcaster BFMTV on Sunday, the MEP said that she hopes that Marine Le Pen will be allowed to stand as the National Rally candidate in 2027, saying: “I hope the justice system will allow the French people to choose their presidential candidates because I don’t believe it’s up to judges to decide who can be President of the Republic.”
Le Pen is currently appealing a “political death sentence” handed down last year over alleged misallocation of EU Parliament funds for which she was sentenced to four years in prison and a five year prohibition on running in any election in France. The sentence is currently under appeal and is expected to be decided upon over the summer.
However, Maréchal said that if her aunt is barred from the race, she will support the party’s 31-year-old deputy and president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, saying that he embodies the Le Pen spirit.
“Jordan Bardella is a man who is fully aware of the responsibilities that rest on his shoulders. He is fully aware that this scenario could present itself to him, and so he seems to be preparing for it very seriously, and in particular, this team approach, this diversity of skills around him. So I am confident in his ability to lead this fight,” she said.
The reconciliation will likely bolster Bardella’s ability to sure up support on the political right in France should Le Pen be barred from the election, given that Maréchal has long been seen as the heir and future of the political movement started by her grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
While Maréchal has been making public overtures to return to the fold over the past year after breaking with Zemmour, Bardella appeared to be giving his potential rival a cold shoulder. However, the divide was seemingly overcome earlier last week, when he attended the launch of Maréchal’s book Si tu te sens Le Pen (If you feel like Le Pen) and the pair were pictured for the first time in years.
Though a significant step towards a full “union of the right”, there still remain multiple pieces on the board, such as anti-mass migration polemicist Éric Zemmour, who has yet to decide whether he plans on running in the presidential election again and whose Reconquête remains active, with MEP Sarah Knafo currently running on its ticket in the Paris mayoral elections.
It also remains to be seen where former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will land. Although widely speculated to be mulling his own potential as a candidate, he has yet to see serious movement in the national polls.
His former Républicains colleague Éric Ciotti, who broke with the centrist party to back Le Pen in the last election, has called on Retailleau and others to abandon the increasingly left-wing Macron government and join the “union” of the right.
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