PARIS (Reuters) – French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who made a failed bid for the presidential elections last month, said on Thursday that he would run for a seat in parliament in the June 12-19 elections.
“I will lead our beautiful and big fight,” Zemmour said in a tweet, adding that he would run for a seat in the Var region around the Mediterranean resort town of Saint-Tropez.
He said his party Reconquete will present 550 candidates in June – out of France’s 577 constituencies.
Zemmour came fourth with 7.07% of the vote in the first round of the April election, well behind far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who came second with 23.15%.
French left and far-left parties have formed a coalition for the parliamentary elections, hoping to boost the number of seats they each can win, but Zemmour and Le Pen are not joining forces and have continued to trade barbs in recent weeks.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and GV De Clercq; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Barbara Lewis)
