When François Mitterrand agreed, in 1992, to conclude a very long program on TF1 devoted to the referendum on Maastricht with a debate with Philippe Séguin, the choice of interlocutor was anything but neutral. Because there were three of them, then, to embody the no: the one who had been Minister of Social Affairs, therefore, but also the former Minister of the Interior, the sulfurous Charles Pasqua, and the whimsical Philippe de Villiers. A fourth personality, Peugeot CEO Jacques Calvet, was considered for the face-to-face meeting. The president favored the most respectable of all, the one who had led the fight in the National Assembly – the one who would later be criticized for having been very, too deferential towards a sick Mitterrand: each time, he had given “Mr. President of the Republic”.
It’s exactly the same thing, except it’s exactly the opposite. Emmanuel Macron is today toying with the idea of debating with Marine Le Pen, according to information reported on Sunday by The gallery, after ordering his Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to confront Jordan Bardella on television. Cruel summary of the French political scene: the opposition, therefore the alternative, is Le Pen-Bardella and nothing else. It’s not that the idea of a sanitary cordon has lived, it’s that it has completely exploded in flight.
Since 2017, this common thread has constantly prevailed. It is important to be fair: at the time, it was not Emmanuel Macron who chose his opponent for the second round, the one who would allow him to triumph as the herald of the Republic. The two government parties, LR and the PS represented by François Fillon and Benoit Hamon, each presented a man who, for very different reasons, will be their downfall. The responsibility of the socialists and the right, subsequently incapable of constructing a doctrine and a strategy thanks to which they would have raised their heads, is immense, just look at their scores in 2022 (4.78% for Valérie Pécresse, 1, 74% for Anne Hidalgo) to be convinced.
Le Pen, Macron’s life insurance
But Emmanuel Macron will have done everything, from the first day until now, to make the far right his main adversary, because he knows well that it is his life insurance. And Marine Le Pen, too happy to be thus valorized, will have been her most faithful ally in the construction of this mano a mano.
Let’s remember their first tête-à-tête at the Elysée, on November 22, 2017. He, all seductive, can’t help it: he tells her he had a thought for her, the evening of a televised debate where she was forced to “stand for three hours in heels”. And he takes care to accompany his visitor of the day to the steps of the Elysée. She, always sensitive to attention – among the Le Pens, we know what it means to be banned from official palaces. “He was charming, clear in his expression, intelligent,” she confided afterwards. Soon, she will find “very beautiful” the speech given on December 8, 2017, by the Head of State on the death of Jean d’Ormesson – “It changes us from those of François Hollande.”
Trivialization, normalization, increase
Let’s remember the last European campaign, that of 2019, a copy and paste of the one which is taking place at the moment. Macron who makes a surprise visit to the political committee of what was still called La République en Marche: “The question is simple: it’s stop or still. Those who believe in Europe and those who don’t believe in it” . Macron who, even abroad, from Sibiu, in Romania, targets Le Pen: “I will put all my energy into ensuring that the National Rally is not in the lead.” Macron who, five days before the election, gave an interview to several regional dailies: “We dozed off, as if we had not realized that five years ago the party which had won the European elections, was the National Front. Did they succeed at the European level? They voted against everything that is in the interest of France. Their project weakens France and divides Europe. And this almost comical phrase because it is repeated almost every time: “This European election […] is the most important since 1979 because the Union is facing an existential risk.”
The 2022 presidential election, followed by the mass arrival of deputies from the National Rally, finally installed Marine Le Pen as head of the opposition. Trivialization, normalization, augmentation. In 2017, Marine Le Pen obtained 21.30% of the votes; in 2022, it rises to 23.15%. Recent surveys credit it, for 2027, with an incredible score of 36%. No one has achieved such a result… since 1974. A certain François Mitterrand, candidate of the Union of the Left, had then exceeded 43% in the first round, before being beaten in the second.
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