The far right made its political comeback on Sunday, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally on one side and Reconquête and her niece Marion Maréchal alongside Éric Zemmour on the other. The two rivals spoke a few hours apart.
It was Sunday, September 10, the disorderly return to school of a broken family, that of the extreme right. And a duel at a distance, but with speckled foils. On her electoral grounds, in Hénin-Beaumont, Marine Le Pen promoted the RN list for the European elections which will be led by Jordan Bardella, without mentioning the competing Reconquête list led by her niece, Marion Maréchal. Who, on the occasion of the summer school of her movement gathered in the South, also ignored her aunt.
At the start of the school year, the two rival strategies are unchanged. Marion Maréchal wants to draw on the rubble of LR to make her list take off higher than Éric Zemmour’s score in the presidential election, 7%. And after two months of absolute silence, Marine Le Pen is convinced that the less she is talked about, the more she progresses in public opinion. She stands out as a natural contender for the 2027 presidential election, for what would be her fourth attempt. At the start of the school year, the instructions to the RN are to keep a low profile: no waves, no taking risks.
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Marine Le Pen prefers to castigate the president
In her speech, on Sunday, Marine Le Pen targeted the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron by waving a few key words: she talks about “downgrade” of the country, ofcollapse” of the nation. She uses miserabilist overtones to denounce the burden of inflation on the poorest. As in the presidential election, she poses as a spokesperson for the anxieties of the French about purchasing power, slogans, therefore, but no new measures. In fact, the most significant thing is not what Marine Le Pen said on Sunday, it is her silences. For example on the environment, she did not say a word at the end of a scorching summer, while global warming is racing, a bit embarrassing when you are aspiring to the Élysée.
And therefore not a word either on the candidacy of Marion Maréchal. Ignoring it so as not to give it weight is classic. This competition, however, worries Marine Le Pen. Usually, the popular electorate mobilizes less in the European elections. If she manages to attract a more bourgeois electorate, Marion Maréchal could deprive the RN of the pole position it obtained in 2019 as in 2014.