the National Rally welcomes the joining of a new senior official

Enarque unknown to the general public, Pierre Pimpie is a candidate on Jordan Bardella’s list.

Deputy Director General of the railway security establishment, Pierre Pimpie, an enarque unknown to the general public, has just added his name to the list of Jordan Bardella’s National Rally for the European elections. An unsurprising rally since the person concerned has already worked for Marine Le Pen for several years.

During the last presidential election, Pierre Pimpie wrote the part of the far-right candidate’s program devoted to the fight against social and tax fraud. Which does not prevent the party from brandishing this new recruit as further proof of normalization. As it approaches power, the RN would attract new skills. But behind this speech, the reality is more complex.

Firstly because it is not new. From the 1980s and 1990s, the National Front recruited senior civil servants like Jean-Yves Le Gallou and Yvan Blot who were enarques, or Bruno Mégret, a polytechnician. Thirteen years ago, Marine Le Pen brandished the arrival of Florian Philippot, also an enarch, as the announcement of her imminent accession to power. Same thing in 2022 with his presidential campaign director, Christophe Bay, who has gone unnoticed. In most cases, these rapprochements ended in resounding divorces. At the RN, enarque stories usually end badly.

Publicity rallies

Furthermore, the CVs of these new recruits are not always spotless. Fabrice Leggeri, current number three on the Bardella list, is the target of a complaint from the Human Rights League for complicity in crimes against humanity. He is accused of having illegally pushed migrant boats back into the sea when he was head of Frontex. As for the other recruit put forward by Jordan Bardella, Malika Sorel, number 2 on his list, she attacked Emmanuel Macron to enter the government a few days before joining the RN.

For the RN, the usefulness of these rallies is to make publicity stunts, to pretend to be a government party. And then serve as a cover-up. Because the RN has long been announcing rallies of right-wing elected officials who still do not come. A handful of unknown senior officials are therefore tasked with compensating. At the cost of a hell of a contradiction. The far right has long criticized the ravages of technocracy which is said to have ruined the country. The Lepéniste party’s attacks on this theme have redoubled since Emmanuel Macron was at the Élysée. However, the RN is rushing to enlist these technocrats whose incompetence it castigates.