Overview
- The party said on February 9 it withdrew its endorsement of 23-year-old Quentin Macullo as its Belfort municipal lead.
- The decision stems from a 2022 post claiming 72% of newborn names in Belfort were foreign-sounding and noting he did not count two Hebrew names.
- Macullo is a local RN youth leader and has served as a parliamentary assistant to RN deputy Guillaume Bigot since summer 2024.
- Senior figure Jean-Philippe Tanguy had recently argued the message was not inherently racist or antisemitic, describing it as a clumsy error.
- RN leaders are conducting broader pre-election culls, with recent deselections in Carpentras and Condat-sur-Vienne and a withdrawal in Vernon after a falsified document was uncovered, and a new Belfort lead is expected in the coming days.