“I don’t want to pass myself off as a saint, but frankly, I don’t particularly like to be talked about.” In a few weeks, Jean-Philippe Tanguy has yet gone from shadow to light. Unknown to the general public before his victory in the 4th constituency of the Somme three months ago, the 36-year-old MP has established himself as the rising figure of the RN. “LCP should pay him royalties. It is thanks to people like him that the channel has good ratings”quips Thomas Ménagé, one of his best friends, also propelled to the National Assembly in June.
The latter, who beat the former Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer in Loiret, will long remember the night of July 21 to 22. The 89 deputies of the far-right party have just voted in favor of the government’s text on purchasing power and Jean-Philippe Tanguy is on the podium. “Silence ! Silence for France!”he asserts, in the early morning after endless debates, to try to calm the deputies of La France insoumise.
A “Cry of the heart“, as he likes to call it, and lyrical flights in the hemicycle which gave him another political dimension. This status as the new strongman of the RN, no one had really seen it coming. “Jean-Philippe is a revelation for me. I knew he was good, but I didn’t think he would be so comfortable”confides Caroline Parmentier, the former press adviser to Marine Le Pen, who sits alongside him at the Palais Bourbon.
“He makes me laugh a lot. In fact, he reminds me of comedian Thierry Le Luron. Physically, but above all for his intelligence and his often very funny stabs.”
Caroline Parmentier, RN MP for Pas-de-Calaisat franceinfo
If this sequence out of time amused a lot Marine Le Pen at the time, the boss of the RN did not hesitate to reframe her new foal on her speeches sometimes “too much cash”. “She told me I had to vary my style during my interventions. Not to be only in the frontal attack. She is right. At the same time, when Marine Le Pen gives you advice, you listen to it”confirms Jean-Philippe Tanguy. At the beginning of July, its release controversy, in full scandal on the Uber files, had also shocked until in the ranks of the RN. The member for the Somme, who regrets it today, had talked about “homoerotic aspirations” that Emmanuel Macron would have been able to solicit from “a number of frames” of Uber when he was a banker.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, whom those close to him have fun comparing to “an old-fashioned deputy, Third Republic style”is in fact nothing of a novice. “I’ve been working in the shadows for ten years, but very actively for the national sovereignist body”he recalls, with his usual lisp.
Right arm of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan for eight years, the Gaullist left his former boss with a bang to join the ranks of the RN in 2020. A painful departure that the leader of Debout la France has still not digested. “I do not lower myself into the gutter in which some trade. They will learn that one never succeeds without being able to look at oneself in the mirror. Given the challenges of the country, please, a little height”he complains to franceinfo.
Since Jean-Philippe Tanguy has been a deputy, the two men have tried to patch things up in the corridors of the Assembly. But resentments are tenacious. “Nicolas Dupont-Aignan is an individualist, he does not want other deputies from his movement to be elected. But all this is not conscious in him: he has never established big Machiavellian plans to trap people”shoots Jean-Philippe Tanguy.
Very critical also of the choice of his former mentor not to ally himself with Marine Le Pen during the legislative and European elections in 2017 and 2019, Jean-Philippe Tanguy recognizes despite everything that he “learned a lot”. “The Dupont-Aignan school is a good school. When you have a guy who gives you private lessons in politics for several years, it necessarily helps you for the future”slips to franceinfo Alexis Villepelet, the current spokesperson for Debout la France.
“The Good School”, the young parliamentarian explains that he also knew her when he worked as an intern, then as an apprentice for Clara Gaymard, the president of General Electric France. It was during this three-year professional experience that he was able to become a specialist in energy issues. “When he was working with us at Debout la France, I remember that he tried to write a 600-page column on energy. He always talked to us about the oil tanks that modest people have to fill to heat themselves. He said that with the inflation that was likely to occur in the next few years, it was going to be more and more complicated for them”reports Alexis Villepelet.
This knowledge of technical subjects and “his exceptional capacity for work, including at night”, according to his relatives, Jean-Philippe Tanguy puts it today in the service of the RN. The young Essec graduate was also one of those who worked the most actively, as deputy director of Marine Le Pen’s campaign, on the theme of purchasing power. “In September, when Marine told us that the theme of the campaign would be purchasing power, Jean-Philippe was one of the first, if not the first, to say that VAT should be reduced to 0% on basic necessities“, confirms the deputy of the North, Sébastien Chenu.
With Jean-Philippe Tanguy, we now have a real specialist in economic subjects at the RN. This is the piece that was missing from our device”
Sébastien Chenu, RN deputy for the Northat franceinfo
This role of“economic expert” at the very heart of the marinist machine, Jean-Philippe Tanguy took it very seriously. But he prefers to praise the work of the Horaces. This small confidential club, composed senior civil servants and influential business leaders, developed a large part of the presidential project of the MP for Pas-de-Calais, in particular on pension reform. “Yes, I was able to help by making the link between the candidate and people who were more technicians than politicians. But it’s true that I like to step up on economic subjects, because I trained in these themes for a long time”says the Sciences Po Paris graduate.
Even the rebellious Eric Coquerel, fairly easily elected against him in July at the head of the prestigious Finance Committee of the Assemblyhas a hard time finding faults with it. “He is above all a far-right MP. But unlike many others, he has a little more expertise in the files. This allows him to be a little more shrewd and to put his knowledge at the service of ‘a certain tactical and less caricatural sense’, launches the LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis. For his colleague Alexis Corbière, the criticisms are on the other hand more acerbic. “A failed speech, support for Emmanuel Macron on anti-social measures, a failed candidacy: nice record!”tackles the rebellious.
When he looks back today, Jean-Philippe Tanguy never imagined this supersonic start to his career. The native of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) who quickly wanted to emancipate himself from his parents, secretary and manager of a furniture factory, was not really predestined for politics. “It is thanks to my reading that I know my country so well today. My passion for history has also helped me a lot”, confides the 30-year-old. To pay for his studies, when he arrived in Paris at the age of 18, he worked as a waiter in a creperie in Beaubourg. But without a big income, it is difficult for the young student to find accommodation in the capital.
I found myself in Paris in a hovel on the Place de Clichy. A 7m2 without kitchen. I heated my meals on an electric stove in the hallway. A lot of people live like that in France.”
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, RN deputy for the Sommeat franceinfo
Less than five years from the next presidential election, Jean-Philippe Tanguy breaks the codes of a party that is trying to appear as friendly. The objective is clear: to professionalize the National Rally from the Assembly by sending to the front young elected officials who embody this RN “new look”. The decision of Marine Le Pen to offer the deputy of the Somme the functions of number two of the group in the National Assembly is not trivial. Just like the choice to send him as a candidate for the presidency of the finance committee of the lower house.
Ambition, youth, gray matter … If some in the opposition see in this rising face of the RN the new Florian Philippot, the comparison does not please Jean-Philippe Tanguy and his relatives. “At the time, Florian Philippot had tried to impose another political line and especially his person to shade Marine Le Pen. There, it is not at all the case: this parliamentary group is there to push Marine le Pen’s candidacy and victory in 2027 and Jean-Philippe is part of this cornerstone towards victory”defends Thomas Ménagé.
“Marine Le Pen is the very embodiment of our political family, both in terms of her human qualities and her ideas. We are at her service, like the Gaullists with their general”
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, RN deputy for the Sommeat franceinfo
How far will the dedicated Jean-Philippe Tanguy go? If some at the RN already imagine him to be the future Minister of the Economy in the event of Marine Le Pen’s victory at the Elysee Palace in 2027, the little protege of the far-right leader does not want to cut corners. “Think of a ministerial post five years before the election is to misunderstand the mysteries of power”, he blurts out, smirking. Before adding, ambitious: “If it happens, Marine Le Pen may need me more at the castle. It is better to have someone you trust as secretary general of the Elysée and rather to appoint a rallying point person to a ministerial post. “