Can a single wave be enough to bury a dam? In this period between the two rounds of the legislative elections, the National Rally is thinking big. Eric Ciotti, by joining the coalition led by the RN, has dealt the first blow to the cordon sanitaire, which until then ensured a perfect seal between the political apparatuses of the right and the far right. It is now up to the Frontists to convert the test. Especially since the Le Penist party is almost certain: its troops alone may not be enough. It will need the right-wing deputies to achieve an absolute majority in the National Assembly, and bring Jordan Bardella to Matignon.
Problem: the Republicans’ executives, in their great majority, denounced Eric Ciotti’s approach and refused to ally themselves with the heirs of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Worse: they collected, this Sunday, more than 10% of the votes, to the surprise of the Frontist general staff who had underestimated their score. Meeting in the executive office, Monday morning, July 1, the bigwigs of the far-right party wondered how to take advantage of the score obtained by the candidates of the traditional right. Hypothesis number one, raised on Sunday evening: in certain constituencies where an LR-various right candidate would have come out on top against the left, the RN candidate could consider withdrawing and thus favor the election of their right-wing opponent, by means of an alliance in the hemicycle.
Negotiations under the table
A sort of last-chance outstretched hand for those who were unsure of their choice. In the crosshairs, profiles like those of Maxime Minot or Fabien Di Filippo, LR deputies who had already voted with the far right during the previous legislature. “The message sent is ‘if there are some who want to become ministers, it’s now'”, comments a right-wing executive, convinced that new dams will give way this week. About ten constituencies are concerned. Not enough to overturn the table. But more than on the number, it is on the symbolism that the RN wants to play. “If they do that, the message they send is that they are forced to anchor themselves on the right, and they send this signal to the deputies likely to make the switch”, continues the same source.
Change of foot. And what if it was better to conduct the negotiations under the table, and to make the right give in definitively in all discretion? Especially since in some of these constituencies, the withdrawal of candidates from the left and the central bloc to block the RN de facto sends the right-wing candidates back to being adversaries of the Le Pen party. On the 8pm news on TF1, Monday evening, Jordan Bardella therefore announced that he would not give voting instructions, nor would he ask his candidates to withdraw. With the idea, also, of differentiating himself from his adversaries from the left and the centre, arguing the eternal National Front argument: “We are not like the others.” “Do you understand that withdrawals and voting instructions are the worst kind of contempt? I consider that my voters are intelligent and free,” assured Marine Le Pen again, this Tuesday, July 2, on France Inter.
“We are moving towards complete normalization”
This does not change the situation of the National Front. The RN, if it does not obtain an absolute majority, will need pivot groups, if only to vote for confidence or the budget. But it prefers to bet on post-second round negotiations, once the tension has subsided and the gaze is less focused on the elected representatives of the right who have not blocked it. “We will find responsible elected representatives once installed in the Assembly”, hopes out loud a Le Penist executive. Rather than rushing the elected representatives in the middle of the election period, the leaders of the RN are banking on a termination of the right-wing deputies in the face of the scale of the National Front wave. Once the second round is over, they assure that they will be able to attract into their nets elected representatives of the right who would not have followed Eric Ciotti the day after the European elections.
“If we have 270 deputies, we need 19 to have the majority,” Marine Le Pen repeated again on Tuesday. “So we’re going to go see the others and ask them if they are ready to participate with us in a new policy, to vote for confidence and to vote for the budget.” In short: wait to try, more discreetly, to bring about a lasting alliance with the right by definitively leaving the cordon sanitaire behind. On the right, some have already definitively buried it, considering that Eric Ciotti’s decision was only a precursor movement, destined to be imitated by many elected officials. “We are heading towards complete normalization in the coming years, especially if they exercise power, and a natural alliance with the right,” assures a manager, for whom the existence of a perfect seal between the right and the extreme right is well and truly a thing of the past.
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