Going back to her speeches, it seems that Marine Le Pen is the most literary of all the candidates and of all the presidential candidates. This is particularly noticeable in the way that the member for Pas-de-Calais has to tune the sound of the words used. “There is no individual happiness possible if the country fades away or worse, collapses”, says Marine Le Pen … other examples: “Principle of a multicultural society which is a multi-conflictual society” … “This society of coping and filing” … “Identity is not a factor of withdrawal, but of benchmarks” … “The delinquents French in prison, foreigners on the plane. “
These are paronomases. A figure which consists in joining two words whose sound is similar. The effect produced, of course, is aesthetic, but also and even above all rhetorical. Indeed, when we argue, the cohesion of sounds tends to suggest the coherence of meaning from the moment the words resemble each other. We have the impression that the concepts come together. This is how, simply by working in her expression, Marine Le Pen manages to give the appearance of the obvious to her assertions. But its literary streak, I believe, does not stop there.
There is indeed another stylistic process widely used, to such an extent that it has also become one of his signatures. It is simply the art of description. Marine Le Pen excels in the art of putting an image or a situation in mind. This is also the case for many lawyers. “Every day, state officials, police, firefighters, teachers are attacked and so many officials go to work in fear of aggression, noted on July 4 the candiate RN in Perpignan when she mentioned security. Every week, young people are deprived of their lives for nothing. For nothing, for a cigarette, a look, a game. “
So it’s clever, here Marine Le Pen, insists on “deprived of life” to add “a cigarette, a look, a game”. In a few carefully chosen details, Marine Le Pen manages to make us visualize a whole situation that we are reconstructing all around ourselves. In rhetoric, a collected description, but evocative, it is what one calls a diatyposis. But I think his preference is for the other style of description: hypotyposis, which is a long and detailed description. She gave an example of this last September 13 in Fréjus by evoking the difficulties encountered by women in “some neighborhoods and some cafes”. “Traveling by public transport with downcast eyes, explains Marine Le Pen, avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze. Sinking into his clothes so as not to be seen isolating himself with headphones on his ears to disappear from the list of targets. Go home looking behind, changing sidewalks, bypassing certain streets. “
So we understand here the desire to depict the situation in great detail, until we all have in mind the most vivid scene possible. And that sounds interesting to me because the descriptions are anything but neutral. On the contrary, they are among the most emotional rhetorical tools. The images they suggest to us are so vivid, so present that in return they provoke affects. And in these two examples, as indeed in many of his speeches, the emotion that we distinguish in the first place is fear. So let’s get on well. I will leave aside the substance of the files. Whether the situations evoked by the candiate RN are real, exaggerated or fantasized: it is a political question. On the other hand, the manner of speaking about it and which, it, is a choice, belongs to Marine Le Pen. This way, it seems to me, is to mobilize the fears of the listeners. And the question that arises is therefore the following for Marine Le Pen, winning conviction implies playing on emotions?
Marine Le Pen answers this question. “No, I do not play on fears because it is the reproach that we are regularly made. I express the reality, the reality that people live and that perhaps you do not express enough. Precisely, you journalists do not very often make yourselves the spokespersons. I think this is perhaps what makes me different from other politicians. I am the advocate of the French people, I am the spokesperson for the French people. I am here not only to say what he is experiencing, that is to say to put in place for all to see the reality that he is living, but moreover to provide solutions. This may be what is missing from your analysis. I don’t just describe. I am not a commentator, I am a politician and I bring and I propose solutions to respond to a reality which is significant and which is difficult. This is true, not in all areas, but in the area of security. Certainly yes.