why Marine Le Pen will go to the ceremony against the advice of Emmanuel Macron

There is no question for Marine Le Pen of being excluded from a pantheonization ceremony, the supreme tribute of the Nation, a moment of unity of the country around its great men.

Impossible for the National Rally MP to be excluded from “The grateful Nation”, for her who in recent years has never stopped trying to demonstrate that she was a responsible politician, member of a Republican party. If Marine Le Pen stepped aside from the tribute to Robert Badinter, it was because the family requested it. She does not intend to bow, however, in the face of this president whom she is fighting, with regard to the pantheonization of the resistance fighter Missak Manouchian.

But when Emmanuel Macron explains that the RN would be inspired not to be present, given the nature of Manouchian’s fight, a resistance fighter shot by the Nazis, this can be understood. Because, despite her strategy of de-demonization, Marine Le Pen is indeed the heir of a party founded by former SS and collaborationists. And if her party today is very different from that of her father, Marine Le Pen has contented herself with the strategy of erasure: change of name, change of method, but still no major clarification. She has not publicly faced her story, not a fan of the strategy of repentance. It is perhaps also this lack of aggiornamento which prevents it today from detaching itself from this past to which its opponents want to send it back.

Flexibility with the protocol risky for Emmanuel Macron

Emmanuel Macron is President of the Republic, and, once again, pantheonization is a Republican ritual. The guest list is governed by a 1989 decree relating to public ceremonies. Unless you consider the president of the RN group as a half-deputy, she therefore has her place like all the forces in the Assembly. Furthermore, why did Emmanuel Macron not speak as clearly to oppose the presence of rebels, against the advice of families, the tribute to the victims of October 7, or the ceremony for Robert Badinter?

By seeking to remove Marine Le Pen, the president is showing great flexibility this time with the protocol. But above all, he takes a risk: that of once again granting the National Rally the status of victim, as if history had not sufficiently demonstrated that often, when we attack it or when we attempt to ostracize her, Marine Le Pen emerges strengthened.