It is always said that the most zealous are the neo-converts. Would it be the same for dunces? At the National Rally, in any case, we are using all our energy to forget the period when the far-right group was still at the bottom of the class. From that time when the National Front was plagued in the Assembly and shunned by the government parties. Today, we proclaim it loud and clear to the party: the RN is a good student. Now present in large numbers in the hemicycle, credited with the best polls for the European elections and comfortably installed in its self-fulfilling prophecy of conquest of power, the party with the flame has only one word in mind: exemplarity.
To the Assembly, first. MPs are strongly encouraged to have a massive and regular presence. There’s no question of missing a question session with the government without a good excuse. And even less a speech from the boss. Which is applauded as a single man by all of its troops at the slightest intervention. Convinced that image is essential in politics, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella passed the word to their troops: “we must appear as we are.” That is to say, according to them, “hardworking, upright and exemplary”.
Assembly figures scrutinized
The attendance figures are also regularly consulted by the frontists who boast about them. Six RN deputies are in the top 20, an achievement! Blessed are the diligent, for they will be rewarded. “I’m proud of you,” Marine Le Pen often repeats to her troops. The desire to be good students does not leave the RN deputies, to the point that some fear falling in the rankings. “I will be very busy with the work in committee in the coming weeks, I who was ranked 6th among the most diligent deputies, I can say goodbye to my score”, laments an elected official from the Palais Bourbon. The same morning, a colleague sent him the screenshot of the ranking, as a souvenir photo.
And what do good students also do? They respond to the invitations of their comrades. Long relegated to the gates of official events, frontists now have access to town halls, prefectures and opening ceremonies. And are asked to participate as much as possible. Posing alongside representatives, rubbing shoulders with associations, shaking hands with each other, that’s what elected officials worthy of the name do. “I go to all the invitations from my constituency,” assures a member. “And even when I am not invited, I go.”
Take Jordan Bardella. Recently, the president of the RN was invited twice to a meeting with Emmanuel Macron and representatives of political parties from all sides at the meetings in Saint-Denis. “I am at the head of a government party, I am in my place, and every time the Republic summons us we respond.” No way for him to miss the opportunity. He would have been badly offended, since Macronie rushed to praise his talents as an orator and the quality of his work. To believe that it would be enough to sign on the call sheet to emerge as valedictorian.