How complex the role of the balancing act in politics is. But that it can, sometimes, prove necessary in the final electoral stretch. And then the National Rally is no longer a long way away. During this European campaign, the far-right party has already mourned its coherence, changing its position on the exit from the integrated command of NATO, on the common agricultural policy (CAP), on the thaw of the electoral body in New Caledonia or on the exit from the common electricity market… An ideological volatility which does not prevent its representatives from setting themselves up as champions of the “camp of reason”, overplaying the reasoned opposition in the face of the so-called incendiaries camped by would be representatives of the Macron government.
“I am reasonable, I am pragmatic”, boasted in recent months the head of the penist list Jordan Bardella, plundering Macronie of its elements of language. “I am the voice of reason in the face of extremes” he even dared, smirking. But on Sunday June 2, for its last campaign meeting before the June 9 election, the frontists returned to the populist accents of the old-style party.
Anti-elite speeches
At the Dôme de Paris, the self-proclaimed “camp of reason” became that of “truth”, promising to “dismantle the industry of lies that governs France”. “Their entire campaign will have been built on defamation, manipulation, slander…,” chanted Jordan Bardella in front of some 5,000 white-hot activists. On June 9, it is also a vote for the truth in the face of the lies they broadcast over and over again against us, and therefore against you.” How far away seems the smooth and polite Jordan Bardella who was offended, in front of Gabriel Attal, at being called a “liar”, denouncing a disrespectful formula.
It must be said that, a few minutes earlier, Marine Le Pen had done a lot of work for him. At the microphone, the leader of the RN group in the Assembly did not hesitate to reconnect with the big tricks which made part of the success of the populist formation. For almost half an hour, the member for Pas-de-Calais therefore attacked this European technocracy, which feeds on crises to “grant itself new powers”. The opportunity also to castigate, again and again, these “norms, fields of norms as if they had become an end in themselves”. And after ? “Tomorrow, the implementation of European taxes, because it is their dream, and which will be added to our taxes, even your savings are not safe as they squint at it in an indecent way,” continued Marine Le Pen, taking her audience to task.
And what would a populist diatribe be without an anti-elite passage? This Europhile elite which, according to Marine Le Pen, “today never stops blowing on the embers to set up a European army in order to wage wars who knows where, decided by who knows who, by capturing our power nuclear power, or even eyeing our seat on the UN council…” In short, at the National Rally, no matter how much we ape the reasoned opposition, the populist relapse is never far away. Above all, after a long campaign without making waves, a return to fundamentals is no easy task in the home stretch, to help with mobilization.