Bardella and Le Pen in “permanent campaign” until 2027… at the latest

Three months after the second round of legislative elections with the scent of failure, the National Rally held a meeting in Nice on Sunday, the first in a long series before, the Lepénists hope, future early elections.

“Until Victory”: on the giant screen in front of more than 5,000 supporters, Marine Le Pen launched a “permanent campaign” which should take the far-right party towards – at the latest – 2027. Until then, a strategy of the « saturation » must be set up, with a giant meeting “per month”.

No more introspection: after a summer spent dwelling on the reasons for the defeat (142 RN and Ciottist deputies elected, behind the left, the macronie and above all the absolute majority of 289 seats once dreamed of), the great Riviera rally intended to affirm both the power and the ambitions of the RN.

On the stage of the Nikaïa Palace, the three-time unsuccessful presidential candidate claimed “the victory of the legislative elections”for having collected “three times more (votes) than two years ago”.

But, the representatives of “single party”, “from Laurent Wauquiez to Jean-Luc Mélenchon via Emmanuel Macron”, “withdrew” pour “prevent a real political alternation represented by the RN and its allies”she lamented.

However, observed Marine Le Pen, “they ruined France and lied to the French: fifty years during which the governments of the right, left and center accumulated 3.228 billion euros in debt”. Conclusion according to her: “The Republican Front is just a bankruptcy union”.

Safety in “joint custody”

The boss of the RN group in the National Assembly, whose decision not to automatically censor the Barnier government allowed her appointment, once again attacked the new executive regarding security policy, according to her “in shared custody” between the Minister of the Interior and that of Justice.

“In week A, (it is) entrusted to Mr. Retailleau, in whom, let’s admit it, we found an ardent defender of our sovereign program (…) In week B, change of atmosphere, our security is entrusted to the quintessence of candid leftism in the person of Mr. Migaud”she quipped.

With regard to Mr. Retailleau, whom some perceive as a student of the method of « siphonnage » theorized by Nicolas Sarkozy in Beauvau (2005-2007) and which allowed him to convince the Lepénist electorate for the 2007 presidential election, Marine Le Pen immediately despaired of the praise.

Concerned about respectability, she attacked him in reverse: about the“Rule of law”which the Minister of the Interior had estimated “not intangible”she highlighted a « divergence majeure » and gives the lesson: “It is not as such that the rule of law must be contested, it is quite the opposite (…) It is the submission of all to democratically defined rules, and this is one of the immense conquests of European civilization”.

The Nice meeting appears to be a snub to the trial which opened Monday in Paris and which targets her, as well as 24 other defendants including the RN as a legal entity, accused of embezzlement of public funds for having working assistants of MEPs for the sole benefit of the party.

At stake: a prison sentence, a fine, but above all ineligibility.

“Low legitimacy”

Faced with this danger, the boss of the RN deputies intended to make the Nice meeting yet another milestone in a fourth presidential candidacy, alongside Jordan Bardella, promised head of government in the event of victory.

“I would have liked to introduce myself to you as Prime Minister”the MEP began his speech, asking the crowd “never doubt”.

But if the future, or the salvation, of the Barnier government depends on the goodwill of the RN deputies to vote or not for a motion of censure, is a new dissolution next year desirable? “You have to be ready for anything”Marine Le Pen recently hammered to her troops.

In Nice, Jordan Bardella took the trouble to point out that the RN does not “did not support” the government, mocking its “democratic legitimacy” and his “electoral base” the most ” weak “ of the Fifth Republic.

In the short term, Lepénists are mainly wondering how the government will manage to pass the perilous 2025 budget. An RN parliamentarian sees further: “Perhaps the President of the Republic will end up having to resign”.