How comfortable it is to have only sat in the opposition. No assessment, no accountability. But all the latitude to inflict reprimands on those who are and have been in charge. The incompetence trials against Jordan Bardella? Whether they come from the left, from Macronie or from the right, the young president of the National Rally dodges them one by one: “I don’t think I have any lessons to receive, any certificates of skills from people who “are preparing to bequeath us a country with more than 3,000 billion euros in debt”, he scathes in the columns of Parisian.
Thus, a few weeks from signing – perhaps – his lease in Matignon Jordan Bardella insists: “I will inherit a financial situation of near bankruptcy my duty will therefore be to put the State’s accounts in order .” A little music played the day after the dissolution of the National Assembly by all RN executives in the media. As if to prepare voters for cascading renunciations of the party’s flagship promises. First and foremost, measures relating to improving purchasing power, most of which are very expensive.
The reduction in VAT on basic necessities
The reduction in VAT on essential goods is a glaring example. In 2022, Marine Le Pen, then a candidate for the presidential election, made it the social keystone of her program, despite the reservations expressed by a host of economists. Two years later, while the RN “is at the gates of power”, according to the established formula, the proposal still stands, but will happen in a “second phase”, evades Jordan Bardella on the air of CNews this Tuesday, June 18.
But when will the VAT guillotine be on this “famous” basket of essential products? “At the start of the new year, the budget vote for the year 2025, which will take place in October”, evacuates the just re-elected MEP who undertakes to order, upon his appointment as Prime Minister, an audit on the public accounts carried out by an independent commission with a syncretic composition: “magistrates from the Court of Auditors, economists, academics”, he said this Tuesday in the Parisian.
Pension reform repealed, yes… but not right away
The “second time”? Call it “the time of reforms”, prays those who would refuse to become head of government in the event of a relative majority. Within this narrative arc of the “second phase”, built by Jordan Bardella, lies the pension reform, which came into force last September. Or rather, its repeal. To justify his unraveling, the boss of the RN found the solution, which he now draws at each media appearance: the pension reform of the Borne government? A “socially unjust” and “economically inefficient” law.
Instead, the National Rally is calling for the establishment of a minimum retirement age of 60 for “long careers”, these people having started working at 20. For others, departure would be gradually extended up to age 62 depending on entry into the job market and each person’s career path. Adjustments which would cost public finances some “1.6 billion euros”, according to figures given by Jordan Bardella this Tuesday on CNews. Expenses that will have to be added to others.
The vagueness maintained on the avenues of savings to be made
Like those generated by the abolition of income tax for all workers under 30, Marine Le Pen’s campaign promise in 2022. “No”, flounders Jordan Bardella. This measure, too, will be postponed indefinitely. Once again, the new darling of the French far right is pulling out the double temporality card. That of urgency, and that of reforms. “It was the presidential campaign program […] I’m not going to do in three months a presidential project that was planned for five years,” he defends himself.
Because “before promising anything and everything”, the hypothetical future Prime Minister wants to restore “budgetary reason in the public accounts”. This does not prevent it from signing “as early as this summer”, the reduction in VAT from 20% to 5.5% on fuel, energy, electricity, gas, and fuel oil. An announcement that pushed Bercy to take out his calculator. Result: this commitment would cost nearly 17 billion euros.
But “rest assured”, the RN lieutenants are agitated. The National Rally would have more than one idea up its sleeve “extremely serious” savings. Immigration, notably by abolishing State Medical Aid (AME). Brushing aside the warnings from the IGAF and the IGF which warned in 2019 of the risk of leading to a “deferral of hospital care” that would ultimately be “more expensive”. But also the “fight against fraud”, poses Jordan Bardella fragilely – without specifying which one. One thing is certain, the RN will never have seemed so shaky in the variation of its program – which suddenly appears significantly less performative – than in the light of its plausible installation in power.