Midnight has struck, so here is the carriage turned into a pumpkin again. The National Rally had almost, however, gotten used to the gilding of Matignon and the Elysée. But this Tuesday, representatives of the far-right party were not invited to the meeting called by the President of the Republic. They who, just a few days ago, were among those who were treated with deference, who were consulted, who were spared, find themselves condemned, with La France insoumise, to observe the consultations from afar, in the absence of participate in it. In his speech on December 6, the President of the Republic clearly expressed his annoyance towards “those extremes” who chose to bring down the Barnier government by voting for censure. The punishment has fallen: these latter will therefore be put aside. With one difference: the Mélenchonist party chose not to attend these consultations. The RN suffered it.
The news also made Jordan Bardella very funny. The young president of the RN had become accustomed to the treatment reserved for him since the meetings in Saint-Denis, in November 2023. On the set of TF1, this Tuesday, he castigated an “admission of disrespect and inelegance” by on the part of the President of the Republic, considering that it would have been courteous to invite him to the discussions. Marine Le Pen tries to put on a good face. “Emmanuel Macron invited all the parties that could potentially participate in a government, by not inviting us, he is giving us the opposition medal and I thank him for that,” she declared from the Assembly. We’ll see if all these beautiful people, this single party that I denounced, can come to an agreement.”
The rebels and the presidential election
There are the complainers, and others, at the opposite extreme of the political spectrum, who were enthused by the seclusion outside the Élysée on December 10. The Insoumis of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, outcasts by choice. Manuel Bompard’s letter response to Emmanuel Macron’s invitation did not lack clarity: “No discussion other than the appointment of a government of the New Popular Front can take place with the head of state. ” Different words for the same story, the one that the rebellious leader expressed on the evening of the early legislative elections last summer: “The New Popular Front will apply its program. Nothing but its program, but its entire program!” This mantra had embarrassed Lucie Castets, the designated candidate of all the left-wing parties for Matignon, who said she was ready to “convince beyond” the NFP in a letter signed by the four presidents of the left-wing group in the Assembly , including Insoumise Mathilde Panot. It was four months ago: an eternity.
Because for the Insoumis, it is no longer really a question of Matignon, and even less of Lucie Castets to tell the truth. She too, the summer muse of the NFP, is under scrutiny for having had the misfortune of repeating, on December 4, what she already said last summer: “we are ready to work with everyone.” Vice-president of the National Assembly, LFI deputy Nadège Abomangoli, formerly a Vallsist and now loyal lieutenant of Mélenchon, mocks her in a tweet: “Good luck for the work with Retailleau who hunts down foreigners and ‘paper Frenchmen’ ‘ or with Kasbarian who harasses officials after flouting tenants’ rights.” Lucie Castets, muse yesterday, traitor today.
Dismissal and division
The latter wrote him an SMS: “it really wasn’t necessary.” What if it was necessary, at least in the eyes of the Rebels? When things escape you, you have to pretend to organize them. The strategy is assumed at LFI: Emmanuel Macron must resign. Translation: a presidential election must be held as quickly as possible. The idea does not only make the left happy, the PS, the ecologists and the communists are far from being ready for a lightning presidential campaign, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon is. The first, united, refuse to rush any dismissal, and continue to play the refrain of a common candidacy for the next presidential election.
Which Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not deny, but in his own way. He also calls for a “common candidacy”, but built around his program. And a few days earlier, on France 3, he already declared: “If it’s an election that takes place there right away, no doubt I can be encouraged to go.” On November 29, while Michel Barnier was not yet censored, Manuel Bompard, coordinator of La France insoumise, already sent a letter to Bruno Retailleau, the Minister of the Interior, to ensure the “good behavior of ‘an early presidential election’. “I would like to ask you to inform the different political forces of the arrangements for organizing an (early presidential) election,” he wrote. The rebellious leader is already busy collecting possible sponsorships from elected officials (500 are needed).
Isolation and prophecy
Together, we go further, but alone, we go faster. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants to go quickly, very quickly. The Nupes ankylosed him, the NFP even more with their primary stories, but he refuses to be responsible for his heartbreak. So, the Rebels accuse the socialists and communists of corrupting the NFP program, and in particular the promise to repeal the pension reform, by going to chat with the political forces of the central bloc at Emmanuel Macron’s table. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon recriminates his yesterday’s partners: “The Communist Party no longer wants us, we have understood that the right of the Socialist Party no longer wants [de nous] and we refuse to go our way with people who insult us along the way.”
This chosen isolation from the rest of the NFP supports the meaning of his prophecy: the next presidential election will have no other outcome than a duel between Marine Le Pen and him. Only the two of them remain, now that Emmanuel Macron is no longer allowed to run again. The political tripartite cannot, he believes, once again give the advantage to an heir of the outgoing president. The extreme right facing the left, the confrontation marked with the seal of history. On the evening of the first round of legislative elections, June 30, 2024, he already proclaimed at Place de la République: “There is no longer any escape in this country from a fundamental choice! We are there: it’s them or us.”
The anti-system appeal
On the RN side, it is urgent to wait. The presidential camp, by committing to “no longer put itself in the hands” of the extreme right, and preferring to address the parties of the “republican arc” has weakened its image of “constructive opposition”. And if an agreement was found between the different formations of the right, the center and the left, making it possible to form a majority, the Lepenist formation would also lose its capacity to censor a new government, and, in fact, part of its weight. politics in the Assembly. Condemned to wait to know which way the coin will fall, some lepenists begin to doubt. “Censorship was probably not the right decision, but it is the one that was taken, so we must now defend it and try to make the best use of it,” says a laconic lieutenant.
Questions are compensated, internally, by a large after-sales service. Luckily, a poll, published this Wednesday, December 11, confirms Marine Le Pen at the top of voting intentions in the perspective of a first round in the presidential election. It is massively distributed and a little too exploited for politicians with peace of mind.
Now an old lexical field is rearing its head again. For several days, on television sets, frontist elected officials have been reconnecting with an expression dear to Jean-Marie Le Pen: “the UMPS”. Tied deputies have given way to slayers of the system, and Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen are now denouncing a “single party” made up of career politicians intended to make short work of a race for positions. “Imagine the absolute disaster for all these parties, from the PCF to the Republicans who would sit in the same government,” comments a Lepénist advisor. “This would be the ultimate illustration that there is a coalition of parties against the interests of the French, and that we We’re different.” The string is a little big. Transform exclusion into singularization. And take advantage of the loss of government status to once again embody an anti-system appeal. At LFI as at the RN, the best jams are made in old pots.
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