It’s not just the United States that has great political dynasties like the Kennedys, Clintons, and Bushes. The French dynasties are less known, but they are no less prestigious. Throughout its history, France has known illustrious families who have occupied a central place in its political life. Just think of the Ferries, the Joxes and the Debrés. Even de Gaulle gave his name to a family that left its mark in politics, the army and the resistance. However, who says dynasty also says family saga, with all that that implies of drama, heartbreak and passion.
France is today living one of these sagas, which is tearing apart one of the last great French political dynasties. You only had to look at Marine Le Pen’s eyes last week to grasp all the tragedy of what is at stake in this presidential campaign. “It’s brutal, it’s violent, it’s difficult for me,” she said on CNews as spectators held their breath.
The explosion of the French right is today personified by that of the Le Pen clan. A family political drama caused by the likely rallying of Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, to her opponent Éric Zemmour. After the father, Jean-Marie, excluded in 2015 by his daughter from his own party, now the niece, who had retired in 2018 to found a political institute, would be preparing to join the author of French suicide. The confession to Parisian that she won’t vote for her aunt was like a bomb. To the point where, from the height of his 96 years, the patriarch announced that he would soon meet with his daughter and his granddaughter.
Former elected representative of Vaucluse, Marion Maréchal, who was the youngest deputy in the history of the Republic, remains a strong political symbol in France. Her disagreements with her aunt, who raised her, have been known for a long time. Her election in 2012 in the South while Marine Le Pen was beaten in the North, in Hénin-Beaumont, appeared to be a form of humiliation for the party president. In 2016, Marion Maréchal refused to be his spokesperson during the presidential campaign. The president was not content to accuse him of not playing “collective”, she put aside most of his supporters in the party.
Beyond the anecdotes, what this family schism reveals is a profound reorganization of the French right. Two months before the first round, it has even become the major fact of this campaign.
The next few weeks should indeed make it possible to designate who will face Emmanuel Macron in the second round, who is still in the lead. While the left seems out of the game, it is a question of deciding who, from Valérie Pécresse (LR), Marine Le Pen (RN) or Éric Zemmour (Reconquest), all three today in a pocket handkerchief, will be able to claim right-wing leadership.
In 1954, the historian René Rémond defined the Legitimist, Orléanist and Bonapartist rights. The first was reactionary, the second liberal, and the third statist. Even if there are still three currents on the right, the campaign is redistributing the cards.
Behind Valérie Pécresse looms an essentially liberal right, that of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. The one that also failed to curb mass immigration and restore security in the suburbs. This explains why his electorate is both tempted by Emmanuel Macron’s nods to an elderly electorate and by Zemmour’s promise to fulfill commitments not kept by the right for 30 years. Of all the right-wing electorate, the most fragile is therefore that of Valérie Pécresse, condemned to the big gap between Macron and Zemmour. Not sure that the map of feminism is enough to close these breaches.
Opposite, there is a populist right led by Marine Le Pen. A current that claims to be “neither right nor left”, close on sovereign issues and immigration, but which leans to the left on social issues, to the point of defending retirement at 60. Despite the entry into the race of Éric Zemmour and several defections in his favor, the president of the National Rally has shown astonishing resilience. Its presence in the working classes is undeniable, even if the departure of Marion Maréchal could deal it a hard blow.
Finally, around Éric Zemmour and his party, Reconquête, a new clearly nationalist and conservative current is forming, which claims to belong to the union of the rights and which draws both from the electorate of Le Pen and in that of Pécresse. Zemmour, who after the collapse of the socialists is convinced of that of LR, is the only one to draw from both camps, thus putting an end to the “cordon sanitaire” which marginalized RN voters. Opposed to the societal reforms of recent years, Marion Maréchal could become the new face of this conservative right that she has been calling for for a long time.
Who of these three currents will be able to face Emmanuel Macron? This is the challenge for the coming weeks. But no matter who will be elected on April 24, the French political landscape will emerge completely transformed.