:quality(50)/2023/08/21/64e385df259cf_thibaud-template-live.png)
Published
Reading time: 5 min
:quality(50)/2024/09/11/075-pinto-meetingb240826-npizq-66e1bffda29e7601880745.jpg)
RN executives intend to review the party’s territorial network, after a legislative campaign marked by a multiplication of problematic candidacies.
For the National Rally (RN), The political recovery is a bit unusual this year. Although the party with the flame, which is returning to parliament on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 September in the National Assembly, clearly won the European elections of 9 June and increased the number of deputies from 88 to 126 in the early legislative elections, it did not manage to seize the absolute majority it was aiming for after the dissolution of the National Assembly. The day after the second round, Jordan Bardella also acknowledged a result that was lower than expected. “We always make mistakes, I made them, we made them and I also take my share of responsibility for this result”conceded the president of the far-right party. As a confession, the general director of the RN, Gilles Pennelle, resigned on July 9.
He was the main architect of the “Matignon Plan”, which was supposed to allow Jordan Bardella to become Emmanuel Macron’s cohabitation Prime Minister, thanks to a list of candidates to be presented in the event of dissolution in the country’s 577 constituencies. But during the campaign for the early legislative elections in June and July, many RN candidates were singled out for their lack of preparation and especially for their anti-Semitic or racist remarks. “black sheep”according to Jordan Bardella.
The summer has therefore pushed the RN executives to learn from this failure and consider a studious return to school in Paris, far from the sun of previous years: Gard in 2023, Hérault in 2022, Var in 2021. Several changes are occurring during this resumption, starting with a new face in Marine Le Pen’s entourage. A full-time chief of staff will take up his duties at the beginning of November, information revealed by The Figarowhich France Télévisions was able to confirm.
The new right-hand man of the three-time presidential candidate is called Ambroise de Rancourt. The Versaillais is an ENA graduate, a 37-year-old civil servant who has worked at Sciences Po, the Paris Conservatoire and the Ministry of the Armed Forces, where he works at the Directorate General of Armaments, in the department linked to French companies. This pianist is also disappointed with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom he supported until 2017 before accusing him of “to stroke the fundamentalists and community agitators in the direction of the hair” from fall 2017 in a blog postIn this position, he will replace Renaud Labaye, already occupied by the strategic position of secretary general of the RN group in the National Assembly.
At the RN, the projects started this fall However, they go further than the reshuffle of the leaders’ entourage.. The party’s territorial network will also be reviewed. According to Philippe Olivier, close advisor to Marine Le Pen, “about fifteen” departmental delegates have already been replaced on Tuesday, during a party meeting. The beginning of a purge, after results deemed insufficient in many territories? The party denies this and prefers to talk about local adjustments: “It’s not against the federations, we just want to improve them”swept away the RN MEP Aleksandar Nikolic with The OpinionThe parliamentarian was tasked with conducting a staff review this summer, with a view to the reorganization carried out this fall.
“The federations concerned needed to be boosted or reorganized. There are federal delegates who have been there for a long time.”
Philippe Olivier, MEP and advisor to Marine Le Pento franceinfo
In addition to these replacements after the failure of the legislative elections, the RN has decided to set up a regional level to better ensure the link between the departmental federations and the RN headquarters. It will be presented at the start of the parliamentary term. In the background, the projects mentioned at the start of the school year outline the gaps in the party’s organization until last July. A training school for executives was launched in 2022 with the help of pollster Jérôme Sainte-Marie, but is struggling to convince the entire RN apparatus. “We need real training in physics, with the implementation of a test of acquired knowledge, this is what we did thirty years ago when I joined the FN”for example, supported in The Express Louis Aliot, the RN mayor of Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Jordan Bardella is due to announce further changes within the party he chairs when the RN returns to parliament. “This is a phase of internal reorganization with a view to future legislative and municipal elections” in 2026, summarizes RN MEP Philippe Olivier. “We have a little year ahead of us.” In view of the National Assembly without a clear majority that emerged from the ballot boxes in July, the party anticipates a new dissolution, and consequently, new legislative elections from 2025.
This time, there is no question of repeating past mistakes.The takeover of departmental federations, particularly by parliamentarians, also aims to better identify the “good” candidates and to exclude profiles that are out of step with the de-demonization strategy pursued by Marine Le Pen and her supporters. “We have had a few accidents, but we must not give up on bringing in ordinary people”defends Philippe Olivier. A new mixed result in the next elections would slow down the momentum of the far-right party towards the next presidential election, whether it takes place in 2027 or before.
On the parliamentary group side, finally, the RN executives want to bring out other personalities in the media, after having been accused of hiding certain inexperienced profiles. This is the case of Flavien Termet, deputy of the Ardennes and youngest member of the National Assembly at 22 years old. To continue its “respectabilization”, contested in particular by the left, the RN also wants to highlight certain elected officials on specific subjects, such as Maxime Amblard, elected from the Meuse, on nuclear power or Frédéric-Pierre Vos, parliamentarian of the Oise, on regional planning.
On the other hand, Roger Chudeau remains in the group but will no longer be a headliner, assures a member of the party. The RN deputy of Loir-et-Cher had triggered an outcry at the end of June, after having considered that the dual nationality of the former minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem posed a “dual loyalty problem”Already looking ahead to the next elections, the far-right party does not want to relive such controversies, which have complicated its task in the face of a still-present Republican front.