During a gathering held at the beginning of the week of the Committee on abroad Affairs of the European Parliament, Marion Maréchal powerfully opposed the accession of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union. Her speech was not just about money, procedures or stableness of institutions. It hit much deeper – in the very definition of what Europe should be.
She stressed that the enlargement of the Union to the Balkan states would entail a risk: costs for French taxpayers, deepening wage inequalities, expanding Turkish influence in the region and weakening the civilizational cohesion of Europe. She presented enlargement not as an chance but as a threat – cultural, economical and political. This approach is closely related to its ideological view, in which Europe should defend its own borders not only physical but besides cultural and religious.
In the background of this message there is another conflict – for the form of the French right. In the fall of 2024, Marion Maréchal took over the presidency of Laurence Trochu in the Conservative Movement, after which she announced his transformation and the creation of a fresh party: Identité–Libertés (Identity–Freedom). The fresh formation was registered at the address of the erstwhile group – at rue de Lourdes in the 15th territory of Paris. Its logo, as before, depicts a Galian cock – a symbol of French nationalism.
The formation of the Identité-Libertés organization was a direct consequence to the divided within Érica Zemmour's group. A fewer days after the June 2024 European Parliament elections, Maréchal, along with Nicolas Bay, Guillaume Peltier and Laurence A small was thrown out of the Reconquista. Zemmour did not accept her return to the more average right-wing circles, nor the proximity signals with Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
This movement clearly marked Marion Maréchal's turn towards the National Unity and beginning up to cooperation with the broad identity right. She publically declared support for Marine Le Pen as a "legitimate candidate of the national camp" in the upcoming presidential election in 2027, erstwhile aunt's candidacy had not yet been threatened. This was a clear change of course towards the run of 2022, erstwhile Maréchal distanced herself from Le Pen and supported Zemmour.
Although this declaration was met with any enthusiasm among right-wing voters, the National Unity itself did not respond positively to the fresh party. interior friction, competition for electorate and differences in strategy show that the French right is not a uniform bloc – it is simply a scene full of tensions, individual ambitions and ideological shifts.
Marion Maréchal is not only fighting for his own place on this phase present – he is fighting to impose her direction. Her imagination of Europe is not a technocratic community, but a civilizational bastion. It is simply a Europe of “white, Christian nations”, defending itself against Islam, globalisation and, in her opinion, cultural decline. specified communicative may be attractive to voters tired of uncertainty, migration and EU bureaucracy, but at the same time it is dangerous. due to the fact that if Europe starts to decide who “deserved” belongs on the basis of religion and culture, it will cease to be an open community and start to match an ideologically controlled club.
Maréchal's speech was clear and consistent. But its consequences – for the future of the Union and for the future of France – may be far more extremist than it seems today.
