when Macronie seeks to counter Marine Le Pen

“She’s doing well and that’s not good news.” This is how an executive adviser speaks of Marine Le Pen after these two weeks of debates in the National Assembly. Faced with the Nupes, which assumed a noisy opposition, the National Rally tried to install an opposition more in the background, less vehement. “Marine Le Pen is above the fray” justifies an RN deputy. An image that has settled.

In the latest Ifop poll, the image of Nupes is progressing, but it is the RN which remains in the lead. 35% of French people say they have a good opinion of it. And for 46% of them, it is Marine Le Pen who best embodies the opposition to this reform in front of Mélenchon.

For the majority, it is a question of posture. “She often posed as a referee” deciphers a government adviser. “She was careful not to put herself at the center of the debates” add another. And this is probably the key to the RN strategy by avoiding focusing attention on her own project, Marine Le Pen has remained under the radar.

The immigration text as revealing of the RN?

Faced with this observation, Macronie is considering an attempt to respond. Within Renaissance, it is affirmed that it is necessary to cross swords on the bottom. “We must denounce their indigent project” explains a cabinet member. They imagine that if the RN really exposed its pension reform project at 60, their speech would be disqualified…

However, several of my interlocutors consider that it is not on pensions that they will be able to get the RN out of the woods. “The immigration text will wake up the identity majority that is in their ranks”, this is what an executive theorizes. As if some were hoping for slippages. Hazardous approach.