The activity is unusual for a month of July in the corridors of the National Assembly. This is because the latter, at the beginning of summer, has just been renewed, and the dissolution decided by Emmanuel Macron has led to an anticipated recomposition of the parliamentary game. That day, at the Palais-Bourbon, the new vice-presidents are elected from among the deputies. At the corner of a corridor, Marine Le Pen meets Julien Dive, elected from the Republican Right (formerly LR). She has just left her new ally, Eric Ciotti, who has chosen to turn his back on the executives of his party to create a coalition with the far right of the National Rally. “You would do well not to let your dog’s leash go too much, he tends to take liberties,” Julien Dive says between his teeth to the Frontist boss. Marine Le Pen laughs. And retorts: “He’s been living again since he’s been with us!”
Eric Ciotti is really alive again? At the end of June, the leader of the Republicans decided to break a historic taboo, agreeing to ally himself with the heirs of Jean-Marie Le Pen. For several months, the tenants of the National Assembly had noticed a change in the attitude of the leader of the right towards Marine Le Pen. Familiar glances, corridor discussions, political and strategic exchanges too. Eric Ciotti had already shaved the cordon sanitaire a long time ago. Cutting it for good was not difficult. The Niçois is convinced: in the political restructuring underway, it is the RN that will come out on top, so he might as well jump on the bandwagon now. “The later you make this kind of choice, the less you win,” assures a close friend. Even if it means becoming a pariah within his historic party. No matter. Eric Ciotti’s bet is on the end of the Republicans, considered as a dead star kept alive by a few local fiefdoms. Being seen as a traitor by his former comrades? A bad time to get through. However, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes experienced it in July.
“He risks being swallowed at any moment”
“I will never shake your hand again,” MP Aurélien Pradié told him in a corridor. “The atmosphere is extremely tense, I have the impression that we are not part of the same political movement,” lamented a deputy from Le Ciott at the beginning of the summer. “They treat us like the leftists do, calling us fascists, barely saying hello to us. They say that we are outside the republican field.”
For the press and the general public, however, the official story remains this one, relayed by Marine Le Pen: Eric Ciotti is happy, his decision has freed him and he has never felt so comfortable in his political corridor. “The understanding with Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen is excellent, swears a close friend. He is a fine communicator, she is a stateswoman. She has a very pleasant form of political moderation, a sense of the State and the Republic, there is no excess, she is not Zemmour.”
Her new status, however, requires unprecedented precautions. The latest: the refusal to integrate into her group the deputies close to Marion Maréchal, despite the latter’s complaints, because of a profile deemed problematic. “We’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot by integrating Anne Sicard, who works with the Iliade Institute [NDLR : une école de formation de l’extrême droite radicale]theorizes a Ciottist strategist. I came back because I am a liberal, conservative, identitarian, but I don’t want a Frankenstein group.”
Result: in the Assembly, the A droite! group is reduced to 16 elected members, and likely to break up at the slightest departure. “He doesn’t understand at all what he’s gotten himself into,” comments a former comrade. “He risks being swallowed up at any moment; at the RN, they are certain to have 5 or 6 of their own elected members in his group, guys who, from one day to the next, if he has any inclinations to support someone other than Marine Le Pen, or to run in the primary of the right, could be disconnected and bring down the group.”
Some elected officials, in fact, were first approached by the RN before joining the ranks of the Ciottists. This is the case, in particular, of Charles Alloncle, deputy of Hérault. “We should perhaps have made our group a little more secure”, admits a deputy. Among the LR executives, they are rubbing their hands. “Marine Le Pen has him completely under control, comments Julien Dive. He is going to become her handyman. He finds himself in the position of the henchman and his political existence depends on very little. It is almost comical, he saw himself as vizier in the place of the vizier, and finds himself Marine Le Pen’s lackey.”
Red line and desire for independence
Eric Ciotti, however, wants to believe in his capacity for independence. On the weekend of August 31, the new pariah of the right is organizing his parliamentary return, in the Alpes-Maritimes, and has not invited any elected representative from the National Rally. “The idea is to found a large popular, conservative and liberal party, independent, to cover the territory in the event of dissolution”, assures Antoine de Chemelliers, the secretary general of the group in the Assembly. Understand: under no circumstances should the Ciotti deputies be vassalized by the RN. In the organization at the Palais-Bourbon, moreover, the deputies of the two groups have a separate room for their meetings, even if a common routine should be put in place at the start of the school year, and Eric Ciotti has set a red line on the economic question. In two words: no question of supporting the National Front vision on pension reform. We remember Eric Ciotti’s grimace in the summer, forced to stand alongside Jordan Bardella who presented the RN’s economic programme to the bosses.
Besides, the Niçois is certain: his rallying brings Marine Le Pen a sociology that she had previously struggled to grasp. And if Eric Ciotti needs the Frontist, the reverse would be true. Besides, the RN general staff has not interfered with the former LR. No obligation to sign their charter, no intrusion into the recruitment process, no request to join the Marinist party. Two groups, two lines. Eric Ciotti now speaks of a “Nupes of the right”. “Within the Nupes, everyone presents their candidates, assures an elected official. This is in no way a merger-acquisition, and everyone is free to go to the elections under their own colours.” A coalition for votes in the Assembly only, then? Without any subordination, really?
“Political relations are a balance of power,” assures a Ciottist. “If you are strong enough to keep your sovereignty, you keep it. But for that, we have to manage to create a large party with a territorial network and tens of thousands of members to be treated as a sovereign party capable of weighing in the negotiations.” This is also forgetting that at the RN we don’t particularly like satellites, especially those likely to overshadow the parent company and its presidential candidate. “Marine Le Pen is using him to break the image of solitude that continues to stick to her skin, but at the slightest misstep, she will not hesitate to get rid of him,” believes a right-wing executive. And at that time, when he will no longer have the right to his double page in The FigaroEric Ciotti will realize his mistake.” Flexibility always involves an element of risk.
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