(Bloomberg) --
French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen suffered a blow on Sunday when her niece endorsed the campaign of far-right rival Eric Zemmour.
Marion Marechal outlined the reasons for her decision in an interview published in Valeurs Actuelles magazine as Zemmour prepared to hold a rally in Toulon, a symbolic choice of venue. The southern city became home to many of the French people who left Algeria after its independence, and became a right-wing bastion with strong showings in favor of Le Pen.
“I've decided to support Eric Zemmour in the presidential election,” Marechal told Valeurs Actuelles. “I'm joining the candidate I believe today to be the best placed to carry the ideas I've always defended to victory.”
Her aunt had fallen into a strategy of opposing the elites against the people, which benefited President Emmanuel Macron, she said, while Zemmour had succeeded “in bringing together French people from all backgrounds and social status.”
She also said she agreed with Zemmour that the main battle is one of civilization, meaning the “migratory, cultural and demographic question.”
For about five decades, the nationalist movement that Le Pen's father founded represented the French far-right. But her efforts to “detoxify” the party after she took over its leadership have alienated hardline members who now prefer the more extreme Zemmour, a former TV personality.
Marine Le Pen Slams Far-Right Rival Zemmour as Too Extreme Even for Her
Marechal has friends in common with Zemmour, and holds harsher views than her aunt. She'd been expected to jump ship for weeks. In finally doing so, she adds to a long list of defections that includes Le Pen's former campaign spokesman, Nicolas Bay, an online activist known as Damien Rieu and Marseille senator Stephane Ravier.
“It's brutal, violent and difficult,” Le Pen told Cnews in January amid growing speculation the niece she helped bring up would eventually back Zemmour. “She said she'd support the one who was best placed to win against Emmanuel Macron, and that's me.”
Her niece told Valeurs Actuelles it was “absurd” to suggest she should have a “quasi-genetic loyalty” to Le Pen's party, saying she quit politics after the last election. She now planned to take an active role in Zemmour's campaign.
Polls foresee Macron winning against both Le Pen and Zemmour, as well as right-wing Republicans candidate Valerie Pecresse, and they suggest his popularity has improved because of his handling of the crisis in Ukraine. Even so, Le Pen can't totally reject Zemmour's backers because she needs them to build an anti-Macron coalition if she wants to make it to the second round.
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