In all good stories, there is always a wolf. Politics is no exception. Ours begins with the National Rally. The far-right party has gotten into the habit, in recent years, of crying wolf. Demanding a resignation here, a dissolution there. The European elections were no exception.
During his campaign, Jordan Bardella had requested, in the event of victory, the dissolution of the National Assembly. It does not eat bread. But among the frontists, no one believes their own refrain.
Chapter 1: The Party That Cried Wolf
Last Sunday, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella still thought they could take advantage of their victory, and revel in the role of the first opponent until 2027. The executives, therefore, all jumped at the announcement of the President of the Republic, and hurriedly put down their glass of champagne before rushing off towards the party headquarters: “We have work!” Fighting action.
“Fortunately, swears the former secretary general of the Assembly Renaud Labaye, we had been ready for months.” Based on an original idea from Philippe Olivier, brother-in-law and advisor to Marine Le Pen, the RN had put in place a “Matignon plan” in the event of dissolution. In short: a list of candidates, often heads of local federations, ready to be nominated by the party. “Everyone made fun of us, including internally, but for once Philippe Olivier was right,” jokes an executive.
The communications plan is simple: voting for the RN means sending Jordan Bardella to Matignon. No time to come back down for the young prodigy of the far right, who goes from MEP to potential Prime Minister in the space of a few hours. Logistically, for the candidates, it’s pretty much good. All that remains now are the technical details, and above all, the program.
But wait. In an exceptional situation, exceptional negotiations. Why not try to attract the right into its net? Did Marine Le Pen fall back on her La Fontaine fables before meeting Eric Ciotti? “Leave the woods, you will do well,” says the dog to the wolf in this story. […] Follow me, you will have a much better destiny.” At La Fontaine, the wolf refuses. The president of the Republicans is not against it.
Known for having multiplied declarations close to the ideas of the RN, he finally chose to take the plunge. In view of the legislative elections, he is in favor of a grand coalition with the National Rally. And thus puts an end to fifty years of strict cordon santé between the right and the extreme right. The right-wing executives are strangling themselves. Psychodrama in Vaugirard. The Republicans, more accustomed in recent years to the smell of formalin than to that of blood, are imploding.
Chapter 2: Between dogs and wolves
Eric Ciotti’s position is far from unanimous but allows the RN to impose its narrative. Jordan Bardella now wants to be the leader of a major alliance which would bring together Republican executives under his banner. It doesn’t matter that the leadership of the right-wing party is against it or that Eric Ciotti has been excluded from his own party. At the microphone of BFMTV, this Friday, Jordan Bardella promises, without further details, 70 “common candidates” under the RN-LR label. The president of the young LR Guilhem Carayon (who was already interacting, in private, with the frontist executives and Eric Zemmour’s party), as well as his father, Bernard Carayon (a former member of the GUD, a small far-right group), follow the path of Eric Ciotti, who is struggling to find candidates favorable to this alliance.
New constraint, however, for the RN. We will have to adjust the program. Let’s not forget that on the right, the main anti-RN argument remains economic. “Marine Le Pen, this socialist”, are still repeated wildly by the Republican pundits. The desire of the Lepenist party, for example, to reconsider pension reform, worries more than one. “No problem, only solutions!” we assure the frontists. Exit, therefore, the desire to repeal the pension reform as a priority. Jordan Bardella now assures him: “There are emergencies and reforms.” In the first category we therefore find purchasing power, security, immigration. In the second, the reforms, although promised for years by Marine Le Pen’s party, which would only come at a later stage in the event that Jordan Bardella would be appointed to Matignon.
To reassure potential allies, the RN publishes its new profession of faith, cleaned of any allusion to the question of pensions. Only eight consensual measures remain “for a government of national unity”, “to support purchasing power”, “put France back in order”, “stop the migratory submergence” or “make life easier for the French. ” At the microphone of BFMTV, this Friday, Jordan Bardella specifies his priority projects. If the promise to organize a referendum on immigration is abandoned, he intends to pass an “immigration law”, without detailing its content, which will aim to facilitate the expulsion of foreign delinquents and to abolish the right to land . The second measure would concern the reduction in VAT on fuel and energy, via a amending finance bill. And the last, the vote for a “security law” which would reinstate minimum sentences and eliminate family allowances for parents of repeat minors. Nothing which, according to the RN, could attract the wrath of the right.
Chapter 3: The wolf in the fold
There remains one last front for the frontists. A last opportunity, rather, to finish off an adversary who has been stealing his feathers for more than two years now: Eric Zemmour and his Reconquest party. And it is Marion Maréchal, head of the list for the European elections of this same party, who will initiate the implosion. Mistreated for months by her comrades, Marine Le Pen’s niece chose to reach out to her original family, campaigning for an agreement between the two political parties. Discussions took place, behind the backs of the Zemmourists, between Marine Le Pen, Marion Maréchal and Jordan Bardella. The RN, at first, floated the possibility of a party agreement, before changing its mind. No matter, Marion Maréchal persists, calls a press conference at Place du Palais Bourbon, surrounded by the party’s vice-presidents (just elected MEPs) Nicolas Bay and Guillaume Peltier, to announce that she refuses to present candidates against the coalition frontist, and distances himself from Eric Zemmour.
The reason given? The latter would have chosen to present dissident candidacies despite everything. “Lies !” chokes the Zemmourie, which denounces an attempted putsch. The rest, like all Le Pen psychodramas, happens in the public square. Through interposed platforms, Eric Zemmour announces the exclusion of Marion Maréchal from Reconquête. “Madame Maréchal is lying,” he exclaimed on the BFMTV set on Wednesday. I welcomed her warmly, like her three friends in treachery who are Nicolas Bay, Guillaume Peltier and Laurence Trochu. […] The truth is that Marion Maréchal negotiated a few miserable places for her friends and her clan within the RN. It’s just a clan operation to rescue a few friends and rascals who have been around her for ten years.”
Five relatives of Marion Maréchal (Thibaut Monnier, Agnès Marion, Anne Sicard, Patrick Louis and Eddy Casterman) will actually be invested by the RN for the legislative elections. The other members of Reconquest will be left behind. Despite the new outstretched hands of Eric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo, Jordan Bardella’s entourage repeats it. “There’s no chance of a deal. None.” Among what remains of Reconquest, we grit our teeth. “The RN used Marion to kill us,” admits an executive. Eric Zemmour, for his part, says he was betrayed, and must bitterly regret having brought the wolf into the fold.
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