/s3/static.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/france-electionciotti.jpg "The French centre-right leader was expelled from the party after flirting with Le Pen's party")
The leader of France's centre-right opposition party, the Republicans, was expelled from his party on Wednesday afternoon. Eric Ciotti's comment comes a day after he surprised in an interview by announcing that his party would cooperate with the far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen in the upcoming parliamentary elections in France. He said he had struck a deal with the National Front with several Liberal MPs, but there had been no consultations with the party's board.
Many prominent party members fell in love immediately with Ciotti. For years, Le Pen's party has been trying to cooperate with the Republicans, who have moved increasingly to the right. Some members changed, but the party thus kept its ranks closed and supported the so-called “Republican Front” during the elections, a ballot box agreement between various parties to prevent the election of a far-right candidate. Therefore, Sioti's announcement on Tuesday was considered an end to this de facto health cordon.
Cooperation between the Left Party and the National Front would greatly increase the chances of Le Pen's party winning the elections scheduled for June 30 and July 7. After the National Front party obtained 31.4 percent of the votes in the European elections that took place on Sunday with the leader of the Popular Party, Jordan Bardella, President Emmanuel Macron announced the holding of new elections for Parliament. His party hopes to unite the center in order to keep the extreme right out of power. At a press conference, Macron described Cioti's proposal for cooperation as a “pact with the devil.”
To prevent the board from meeting on his suspension, Cioti tightly locked the doors of the party office on Wednesday morning. He locked himself inside. The party council then fled to a nearby museum to expel him. “We are calling Jordan Bardella to get him out of the office,” MP Aurelien Pradier said. Le Monde.
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Macron seeks national unity against Le Pen's party, but the left and right are not cooperating
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Also fight in Reconquête
Controversies are also taking place elsewhere on the (radical) right side of French politics. Reconquête, the smaller radical right party led by controversial former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen's niece Marion Maréchal, is on the verge of collapse due to disagreements between its two leaders. Much to Zemmour's surprise and dismay, Maréchal wants to join her aunt and form a broad right-wing (radical) union for the parliamentary elections. It became clear on Tuesday that the National Front is blocking this boat because Zemmour is considered too extreme for a party that is trying to get rid of its extremist image.
Marichal made the statement Wednesday evening He knows that Zemmour himself wants to present candidates in the parliamentary elections who will compete with the candidates of the National Front Party. Maréchal believes that this reduces the chance of gains for the (radical) right and “a historic defeat for Macron.” Therefore, it is now calling on its supporters to “choose unity, not division.” By this she means voting for the National Rally Party, the party she once belonged to and has challenged in recent years.
