Elisabeth Borne attacked the National Rally (RN), “heir to Pétain”, attracting the wrath of Marine Le Pen. The political editorial of Jean-François Achilli.
The National Rally (RN) is a “heir of Pétain”, said Elisabeth Borne on Radio J on Sunday May 28. Why this charge? And especially why now? Because Emmanuel Macron realized that the pension crisis had had the effect of favoring Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN deputies who is a hit in the opinion polls. As the campaign for the Europeans begins, the mid-term elections for the Head of State, the instructions to the Elysée are clear: after having targeted La France insoumise over the days of mobilization against the pension reform, it is now necessary to seek out the National Rally, to empty it of its substance, in particular on one of its fundamentals, immigration. This is Gérald Darmanin’s job. And summon the ghosts of collaboration as if it still spoke to voters.
>> STORY. On October 5, 1972, a motley far-right alliance created the National Front around Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The RN, heir to Pétain? The accusation sticks well to the FN. But for the RN, it’s more complicated. The National Front, founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, was openly nationalist, far-right, an aggregate of former members of the OAS, the New Order movement, and the GUD. The treasurer had fought in the SS Charlemagne division and the boss of the FN will have multiplied racist and anti-Semitic provocations. Marine Le Pen, by founding the RN in 2018, claimed the break with the paternal heritage. The double presidential finalist has been scrambling since then. She now claims Gaullism. Purchasing power has replaced leaving the euro. The most extreme fringe of his electorate went to Eric Zemmour. Sincere conversion or pure strategy of conquest of power? It depends. Marshal Pétain now seems very far away.
Nothing says that Elisabeth Borne’s attack works. It never worked with the father, qualified in the second round in 2002, even if there was no progression of votes. And it works even less with the girl who says she wants to turn her back on this sulphurous past. Jordan Bardella, born half a century after the end of the Second World War, accused the head of government on Sunday of insulting the first opposition party and smearing millions of French people. On franceinfo, Sunday, Sébastien Chenu, he judged Elisabeth Borne “uneducated, unworthy and incapable”.
The problem is there: a growing part of public opinion cultivates, over the crises – Covid, inflation, pensions – a form of hatred of power, accused rightly or wrongly of being far from its concerns. What voters expect today are no longer verbal battles or hasty history lessons with references that seem out of the ordinary to them, but results, a significant improvement in their daily lives. Politicians are more than ever judged on their ability to transform society and nothing else.