The figure seems insignificant, but it is quite a symbol. Among the approximately 500 candidates for the legislative elections that the National Rally had to find – 499, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior – there are around thirty civil servants or former civil servants, or around 5% of the investitures. In the far-right party, it is the private sector professions – real estate agent, HR manager, health profession, lawyer – which seem to dominate. But also many parliamentary assistants, collaborators of elected officials of the RN, and young people from the National Youth Rally (RNJ).
The sign, as L’Express already highlighted this week, that to succeed in investing candidates and substitutes, the party had to mobilize its entire ecosystem. Not without making some notable “takes” within the civil service. Police officers, former soldiers, but also senior civil servants and even teachers… Here is the x-ray of the National Rally candidates who have gone through the civil service.
Officers and magistrates
Long shunned by the “elite” of the civil service, the RN has at least four senior civil servants among its candidates. The diplomat Rémy Queney thus represents the party in the 3rd constituency of Allier. Former prefect of Aube or Dordogne until 2016, Christophe Bay is a candidate in the 3rd constituency of Eure-et-Loir. The figure is well known to the media: he was Marine Le Pen’s campaign director during the 2022 presidential election.
Apart from these cases, two other senior officials are joining the RN investitures thanks to the party’s alliance with the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti. In Burgundy-Franche-Comté, Thierry Coudert, former prefect of Eure and Seine-Maritime, member of the UMP then the Republicans, is running in the 3rd constituency of the Côte d’Or. Finally, Jean-François Mourtoux, state administrator, project manager in the office of the director general of the Regional Health Agency in Île-de-France, is a candidate in the 4th constituency of Yvelines.
But senior civil servants are still a very small minority among potential future RN deputies. The largest contingent of public officials is, unsurprisingly, those belonging to law enforcement. The investitures of the National Rally thus include at least five former soldiers (and a reservist), seven police officers, a gendarme or even a prison guard (also a volunteer gendarme). There is also a former magistrate, the media vice-president of the UNI Charles Prats, in the 6th district of Haute-Savoie.
Among the notable figures of this cohort, we also find Olivier Damien, honorary divisional commissioner, who was once secretary general of the Union of National Police Commissioners. The man, now RN regional councilor in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, is running in the 2nd constituency of Saône-et-Loire. We also find Sébastien Soulé, former police officer cleared in the Bac Nord affair, invested in the first constituency of Toulon. The outgoing deputy Stéphane Rambaud, retired police officer, is running for the RN in the 3rd constituency of Var.
Among the military, we note for example the officer of the National Navy Edouard Fauvage, who is running in the 3rd constituency of Calvados with the candidate nuance of “Union-nationale” (LR-RN). Or Olivier Monteil, present in the 2nd constituency of Hautes-Pyrénnées. Regional councilor of Occitanie since January 2016, the man went to Saint-Cyr and was an army officer “from 1986 to 2013”, according to his Linkedin profile.
Candidates for sovereign functions
These nominations are not surprising. The National Rally has been striving for years to convince the electorate of the police and the armed forces. Latest example: two posters published by the party on June 1, a few days before the European elections, representing, in uniform, a gendarme and a soldier, accompanied by the words “I vote Bardella!”.
According to one Ifop survey published in 2019 and having already been widely relayed, the RN vote had been “very clearly above the departmental average” in the small garrison towns of the army, during the previous European elections. For example, in Mailly-le-Camp, in Aube, nearly 50.4% of those registered voted for Marine Le Pen’s party – 17 points more than in the rest of the territory.
As a general rule, studies carried out in recent years reveal that “50 to 60% of police and military personnel (including gendarmes) vote for the radical right”, explained recently to The cross Luc Rouban, research director at the CNRS, member of Cevipof, the political research center of Sciences Po, and specialist in the civil service.
“In recent years, the profile of RN candidates corresponded more to that of retired gendarmes, underlines the researcher with L’Express. But this changes over time, which explains the diversity of law enforcement candidates. Mostly, RN investitures are mainly awarded to civil servants working in the sovereign functions of the State.”
Other members of the civil service joined the party. In the latter, there are at least four employees (including project managers and a former retiree), and seven “A” executives, that is to say having management roles. Colette Levêque, who presented herself in 2021 as an “A executive in the public service” on a blog specializing in “local Aulnaysian news”, is a candidate in the 4th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis. Thierry Perez, departmental delegate of the RN in Isère, is trying to run for the 10th constituency of the department.
Members of National Education
The rest of the candidates are generally employed in… National Education and higher education. Teacher (like Benoît Auguste in the 7th constituency of Isère), former inspector general of education (the outgoing Roger Chudeau, deputy until now for the 2nd constituency of Loir-et-Cher), or even a history teacher -geography (Anne Sicard, formerly of Reconquête, Eric Zemmour’s party, in the 1st constituency of Val-d’Oise)… At least 10 members and one retiree from National Education operate with the RN label during these legislative.
“Even today, the RN vote remains very limited in the teaching world at around 14 or 15% – with the exception of teachers, where it is around 23%, notes Luc Rouban. Even if it remains relatively low, the presence assumed responsibility of the party in National Education was extremely rare until now – it was something hidden, shameful.” The sign, for the political scientist, of an interest of RN voters in questions of “social mobility”, “transmission”. That of a “trivialization of the RN” and a “crisis which is affecting a profession which is nevertheless relatively impervious to the ideas of the RN”, according to Sophie Venetitay, general secretary of the SNES-FSU.
“In truth, apart from teachers – and this is changing – and senior civil servants, civil servants now vote just as much for RN as in the private sector”, summarizes Luc Rouban. Between 2017 and 2022, Marine Le Pen gained 9 points among senior civil servants, noted a note from Cevipof. In the European elections, the percentage of public employees having voted for the National Rally was almost equivalent (33%) to that of the private sector (36%). The progression is spectacular compared to the 2019 elections. At the time, 36.2% of private sector employees had slipped a National Rally ballot into the ballot box, compared to only 16% of those in the public sector.
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