Mathieu Gallard is research director at Ipsos France.
LE FIGARO. - In, between the two rounds of the presidential election, when Emmanuel Macron needed to wave the red rag of the brown peril, and he did not hesitate to launch appeals with his foot to the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In the legislative elections, it was then necessary to wave the brown rag of the red peril. Result: the Nupes is in force in the hemicycle, just like the RN. Did Emmanuel Macron miss his triangulation strategy?
Matthew Gallard. -
This strategy has, after all, allowed not only Emmanuel Macron to be easily re-elected - a challenge in our political system - and then the presidential coalition to remain the first force in the National Assembly following the legislative elections.
The balance sheet could have been much worse for Emmanuel Macron in the end, especially since the Assembly, if it emerges stronger from this ballot compared to the Élysée, does not seem so ungovernable as it has sometimes been advanced: the first major text of the second five-year term, the bill on purchasing power, was passed quickly and by a large majority.
Emmanuel Macron can tell himself that he will be able to govern, even if it means having to compromise and fall back on the Jupiterian presidency which characterized his first term.
It is in the medium term that the strategy adopted by Emmanuel Macron could turn against him.
In fact, the second round of legislative elections has already been marked by a collapse of the Republican front, which was still functioning as best it could two months earlier.
Left-wing voters, scalded by Emmanuel Macron's back and forth, stayed at home rather than blocking the RN in the constituencies with a second round Together! / RN.
And the voters of the majority also abstained in the constituencies with Nupes / RN duels, following in this the rhetoric of several leaders of the macronie who now refuse to distinguish between these two formations.
This disappearance of the Republican front has manifested itself at the local level, when the stakes are relatively diluted: in the end,
in each constituency, to elect a single deputy out of 577. But if this development is reinforced in the years to come and results, in 2027, in the election of Marine Le Pen or, why not, of a candidate from the Nupes at the Presidency of the Republic, it will be an indelible stain on Emmanuel Macron's record.
His place in history would be affected, just as that of Barack Obama suffered from the fact that it was Donald Trump who succeeded him.
In this context, the RN seems to adopt a notabilisation strategy. Can the RN achieve its transformation into a government party?
The main handicap of the FN and then the RN for years, particularly in breaking through to the classical right-wing electorate, was its lack of credibility to lead the country, a feeling which was reinforced by its political isolation and its inability to find allies.
Since the second round of the legislative elections which gave rise to a National Assembly without an absolute majority, Marine Le Pen has therefore chosen a strategy aimed at demonstrating to the French that her party was now a government party, both substance (by refusing systematic obstruction) and form (by giving strict instructions to MEPs in matters of dress and behaviour).
There is indeed a part of France where the RN is perceived as a normal party, if not as the locally dominant party, and therefore the one where, if one wants to have a political career, it is appropriate to engage .
Mathieu Gallard
This strategy, if it is maintained over the long term, can undoubtedly succeed in modifying the image of the RN and making it perceived by a larger part of the population as a party capable of compromise, responsible and therefore ready to access the power.
There is nevertheless a major risk to this strategy: will its electoral base, driven by a visceral anti-Macronism and, more broadly, by an anti-system logic, accept this substantial modification of the DNA of the party?
Here again, only time will tell, but Marine Le Pen can look with some concern at what happened to Matteo Salvini on the other side of the Alps: the coalitions he formed under the governments of Giuseppe Conte (2018-2019) then Mario Draghi (2021-2022) have “
institutionalised
his image in spite of himself, confusing his electorate who turned en masse to Giorgia Meloni.
Is the social cost of membership, of a commitment to the RN still too high for this party to become notable?
I think this is a question that must be broken down at the local level, with very different configurations from one region, one department or even one city to another.
But Marine Le Pen exceeded 30% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election in 17 departments, won the majority in the second round in 23 departments, and her party obtained a majority in 89 constituencies in the legislative elections... There are therefore indeed a part of France where the RN is perceived as a normal party, if not as the locally dominant party, and therefore the one where, if one wants to make a political career, it is appropriate to engage.
Nevertheless, the RN has historically had a management of its human resources which is quite erratic, very often changing candidates from cities or constituencies,
by not retaining activists and by not really training them to increase their skills, etc.
It will undoubtedly be necessary to make efforts in this direction in order to achieve a real logic of notabilisation.
The question is whether the party leadership really wants it: a party that gains recognition is also a party in which local baronies are created, and therefore alternative centers of power to the national leadership.
It is difficult to accept for a party as centralized as the RN and which has known in its history a very large number of splits.
The question is whether the party leadership really wants it: a party that gains recognition is also a party in which local baronies are created, and therefore alternative centers of power to the national leadership.
It is difficult to accept for a party as centralized as the RN and which has known in its history a very large number of splits.
The question is whether the party leadership really wants it: a party that gains recognition is also a party in which local baronies are created, and therefore alternative centers of power to the national leadership.
It is difficult to accept for a party as centralized as the RN and which has known in its history a very large number of splits.
Can the Nupes be, in the long term, come up against the same problem or does the presence of personalities from so-called government parties play in its favor?
The Nupes is obviously divided between two wings which, from the point of view of the relationship to power, have different traditions: its anti-system and movementist wing - and which intends to remain so - embodied by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and France Insoumise, and its wing more inclined to compromise and perceived as more ready to participate in power, rooted in the PS and in certain factions of EELV and PCF.
Depending on the wing that will take over during the five-year term, the image of the Nupes in 2027 could be that of an anti-system formation, less credible as a government party but likely to capitalize on growing anger if the economic and social crisis is growing;
or on the contrary that of a more moderate formation, the incarnation of a responsible left which
would rely on a certain number of personalities who have already held important positions or benefit from strong local roots.
Currently, the balance seems to be clearly tipping in favor of the most radical wing, but it remains to be seen whether the results of the intermediate elections of the five-year term (generally not very favorable to the FI) and the respective weight of the parliamentary groups (the FI group does not having no absolute majority within the Nupes) may influence this situation in the months and years to come.