a “surprising” fact, “we say that he had a double agenda”, analyses a sociologist

“The French pay little attention to what is happening at the European level. It is a tragedy and a mistake,” said Erwann Lecoeur, Tuesday on franceinfo. Jordan Bardella will chair the “Patriots for Europe” group, the third force in the European Parliament.

“The fact that Jordan Bardella is taking over the leadership of the group is quite surprising since we can say that he had a dual agenda: either Prime Minister in France or President of the group in Brussels”analysis Tuesday July 9 on franceinfo Erwann Lecoeur, sociologist, political scientist, specialist in the extreme right and research professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes.

The National Rally on Monday joined the new radical right group of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to form the third force in the European Parliament, ahead of the political families of Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron. The leader of the French party, Jordan Bardella, will chair this group called “Patriots for Europe”, announced RN MEP Jean-Paul Garraud, during a meeting in Brussels.

franceinfo: How should we interpret this rally?

Erwann Lecoeur : Several elements must be read in the background. Since Jordan Bardella will not be able to be Prime Minister in France, there were negotiations in progress with Viktor Orban’s group, which had been trying to get into the dynamic and the big European structure for years. Viktor Orban [dont le pays exerce pour six mois la présidence tournante de l’Union européenne] is a potential key for a number of far-right groups to gain new respectability. This is probably what is happening in the background.

This group is the third largest in the European Parliament, does the RN have two faces?

Yes indeed. Up until now, this is something that the RN has barely explained. It is exploding again today with this rapprochement with Viktor Orban who is very clearly rather pro-Russian. The French pay little attention to what is happening at the European level. It is a tragedy and a mistake. The fact that Jordan Bardella is taking over the leadership of the group is quite surprising since we say to ourselves that he had a double agenda: either Prime Minister in France, or President of the group in Brussels.

This group is in competition with Giorgia Meloni’s in Italy. Marine Le Pen tried to make a big group, she didn’t succeed. Is Viktor Orban succeeding where Marine Le Pen failed?

For the moment he has not managed to bring them together. There are still two main lines which are mainly lines at the level of the programs of some and others. There are really conservatives like Giorgia Meloni, neo-fascists in Italy, and people who are rather on a very anti-immigration and very anti-Islam line like Viktor Orban. There is still a strong split between these two large groups. In a certain way, the RN and Jordan Bardella are taking a step towards a sort of clarification. They are entering a certain group which is very clearly rather anti-EU, rather pro-Putin and in a certain way, this will also perhaps weigh on the future of the RN in France if ever the French media talk about it.