The experience leaves a bitter taste. Over the past two years, the National Rally had become accustomed to polishing its image a little more each day, to seeing taboos fall, to dining with representatives of the majority or the right, to taking new steps in de-demonization month after month. In 2022, after having elected 89 deputies, the far-right party even obtained two vice-presidencies in the National Assembly.
Two years later, here is Marine Le Pen’s group sitting on the benches of the hemicycle again, having gone from 89 to 125 elected representatives (143 with their Ciottist allies), but this time without managing to secure any key positions, at the end of a week of voting at the Palais Bourbon, following a political agreement reached between members of the Republican right and the presidential camp. A downgrade in order suffered by the Frontists, confronted once again with a cordon sanitaire that they were sure they had succeeded in burying.
But the RN’s historic score in the European elections in June and in the first round of the early legislative elections acted as an electroshock and resurrected the Republican Front to block the far right. And with it, in the Front’s speeches, the anti-system argument resurfaced. Faced with their disappointing score on the evening of July 7, and their inability to obtain strategic positions in the Assembly, the Marinists cried democratic scandal, denounced a lack of respect for the millions of French people who slipped an RN ballot into the ballot boxes, and rebelled against an “unnatural alliance” intended to block them. An online petition was even circulated to the RN electorate, demanding “the protection of democratic values and the country’s institutions.”
The return of the anti-system
Marine Le Pen, for her part, overplays the Republican card. “I am perhaps the only one to defend democracy, we do not want positions for ourselves but because it is the consequence of the vote of the French, moreover it is normal that the New Popular Front also has positions”, she declared, on July 17, on the microphone of BFMTV. On the majority side, there are also questions about the relevance of this isolation strategy, and some fear that it will turn against the presidential camp. “We must be careful, warns an interlocutor of the Head of State. Ten million voters voted for them twice in a row, and their exclusion is contrary to article 10 of the internal regulations of the Assembly.” The latter specifies that the election of the Bureau must strive to reproduce “the political configuration of the Assembly”.
Having been forced back to the margins of political life in spite of themselves, the National Front members are now pretending to rejoice. Most of them even assure that the targeting they are subject to could only serve them electorally. “It is absolutely fascinating to see to what extent our opponents are incapable of reacting to us and are giving us gifts,” comments the deputy for the Somme, Jean-Philippe Tanguy. Time for the new story: the RN, victim of political games, now prefers to keep its distance from a system it abhors. “Given how things are going in the Assembly, the further we stay away from this mess, the better it will be for us,” assures a close friend of Marine Le Pen. Even if it means playing on this status of being unsavoury, which they have been trying to get rid of for years. “We are not like the others, we do not want these positions for ourselves but because they are the consequence of the French vote,” the National Front leaders repeat over and over again.
Betting on the future
So much for the public discourse and the television sets. Behind the scenes, however, the RN has learned the lessons of its two years in the Assembly, and has not held back from engaging in tactical games throughout the last week, exchanging with representatives of the right and the presidential camp. Without success. The idea of an appeal to the Constitutional Council was briefly considered, then finally abandoned. Too complex.
Marine Le Pen and her group are instead banking on another scenario: that of a dissolution in a year. Rather than waging battle in the chamber, they prefer to make plans for the future and look to the long term, also considering the option of Emmanuel Macron’s resignation, which Marine Le Pen considers likely. For the time being, in the Assembly, the RN and its right-wing allies, who had dreamed of a majority, will be content with an opposition role, and plan not to overdo it, constrained by limited room for maneuver. As their only recourse, one elected official considers, laconic: “We have one thing left: politics.”
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