Guest of France Inter this Wednesday morning, Sébastien Chenu blamed Mediapart, almost 48 hours after the publication by the media of anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Jordan Bardella.
“In this somewhat clumsy manipulation of Mediapart there is obviously a pitfall for Mediapart: either Mediapart manipulates public opinion, […] or does it itself get smoked by people who obviously want to harm us,” declared the vice-president of the RN.
“In both cases, this disruption of the electoral campaign will have legal consequences,” he continued, estimating that Mediapart does not have “the legitimacy to distribute the good points and the bad points on anti-Semitism”.
“That Mediapart is an opposition media to the National Rally, it is a fact. I’m not making it up, it’s part of their editorial line,” said the MP from the North. According to him, “many people want harm to the National Rally and to the candidacy of Marine Le Pen and that of Jordan Bardella.” “They can come from the extreme right, the extreme left, the powers in place: many people do not want to see us arrive,” he added.
Every media war is made up of legal battles. And some take on the appearance of poker moves. On Monday, it was this counter-offensive that Jordan Bardella launched by announcing the filing of a complaint for defamation against Mediapart, the investigative media, which published, a few hours earlier, an investigation which would reveal the anti-Semitism of the president of the National Rally (RN) based on private conversations. A political uppercut that demands a rapid response.
“We have not yet decided on the choice of procedure, because I barely had time to open the file,” explained David Dassa-Le Deist, lawyer for Jordan Bardella and the National Rally, on Tuesday morning. At this stage, however, it seems that party officials are favoring the defamation complaint with the creation of a civil party.
Also read Faced with Mediapart, what legal strategy will Jordan Bardella adopt?
“We demand the publication of the writings [attributed to Jordan Bardella]. Jordan Bardella asked for it, in fact. For now, we're talking thin air. We are talking about a media that wants to destabilize the RN,” urged National Rally MP Julien Odoul, while anti-Semitic remarks were attributed to the party president by the media Mediapart.
“We are waiting for these documents to be disclosed and for justice to take charge of them,” he added. “What Mediapart and the alleged authors of this smear want is for the media crusher to start.”
Inheritance, taxation, retirement, savings and public debt, life insurance... Seven candidates for the presidential election - David Lisnard, Gabriel Attal, Bruno Retailleau, Xavier Bertrand, Jérôme Guedj, Édouard Philippe and Jean-Philippe Tanguy, representing Marine Le Pen following an incapacity - spoke this Tuesday on these themes during a "grand oral" organized by Afer, the first association of savers in France with 750,000 members.
Among these subjects, only one truly achieved consensus: life insurance, considered the preferred investment of the French. One after the other, the candidates in the presidential election (or in the left-wing primary for Jérôme Guedj) have pledged not to touch the taxation of life insurance and its specificities, if they were elected. In the event of death, the beneficiaries of the contracts are currently only taxed above 152,500 euros. In addition, contract holders benefit from a reduction of 4,600 euros per person (9,200 euros for a couple) for withdrawals made after eight years.
Also read Retailleau, Attal, Philippe… In front of the savers association, presidential candidates undertake not to touch life insurance
“Progressive extension” to 65 years and 45 years of contributions: expected at the turning point for years, Édouard Philippe unveiled his pension reform on Tuesday, an important step in his presidential campaign, expected in a feverish outgoing camp facing the RN and LFI.
It was two days before the presentation of the budgets by the government, against the backdrop of a day of strike in the civil service, a movement in high schools and in the midst of the controversy surrounding Jordan Bardella that the Horizons candidate presented the content of his reform, in a video of around twenty minutes published on his social networks.
Pension reform is a crucial issue for the former Prime Minister, presented, since an interview given to Challenges in 2021, as the man of “retirement at 67” by his adversaries. But also sometimes by his competitor Gabriel Attal, and even by a supporter like Gérald Darmanin, who said he was “opposed”.
Exit the label of “67 years”, therefore, for the best placed of the candidates of the right and the center ahead of Mr. Attal and Bruno Retailleau (LR), according to polls which above all show the absence of dynamic for the outgoing camp. “Édouard has not taken a point since his meeting in majesty on July 5,” worries a party leader.
