Jean-Yves Camus is an associate researcher at IRIS. A specialist in the far right, he directs the Observatory of Political Radicalities of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation.
FIGAROVOX. - The vote for the presidency of the National Rally will take place on November 5. What are the issues ?
Jean-Yves Camus. -
The first challenge for Marine Le Pen, who has already left the presidency of the National Rally, is to show that this party is capable, as it has already done before, of renewing its authorities under the terms of a debate, a democratic and equal competition, giving voice to its members and the possibility of deciding between the two candidates for the moment declared.
The stakes are high because in the normalization process, it is a question of image to show that the president of the National Rally is no longer chosen in an undemocratic way.
Jean-Marie Le Pen was renewed by acclamation;
it was not the best image one could give of the internal debate.
Marine Le Pen in 2011 was elected after a real campaign against Bruno Gollnisch.
They had two divergent political lines.
Each candidate had his support committees, a campaign manager.
There was a real ideological clash and Marine Le Pen won honestly.
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She tries to repeat the same exercise except that she no longer wants to be in the game, and that for two reasons.
First, the institutions of the Fifth Republic encourage anyone who claims the presidency not to be the creature of a party.
He must be above the partisan fray.
Thus, Marine Le Pen wants to gain ground in relation to the political party which is hers in a desire to unite in the future, because such is the condition for becoming President of the Republic.
Then for a very long time, one of the criticisms addressed to the National Front, not only by its adversaries but within the movement itself, was to be a family party.
Marine Le Pen wants to break with this burden that is still pursuing the National Rally by taking on both its presidential stature,
Quite naturally, the fact of sitting in the Assembly notabilizes, unless one chooses like rebellious France to have an attitude of rupture with the habits and customs of Parliament.
Jean-Yves Camus
Marine Le Pen actually prefers to hand over to devote herself to the 89 RN deputies. Since 1972, the party has been led by a Le Pen (except the interim presidency of Jordan Bardella for a year). Does the official taking up of a new figure mark a turning point in the history of the party?
We will see, it will depend first on who will be the president and then on how he behaves.
Marine Le Pen however insisted on two things in her press briefing at the end of the parliamentary session yesterday.
First of all, this competition will be policed, there is no question of the party tearing itself apart.
The second thing she has made very clear is that she will be keeping more than an eye on the political course of her party.
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Will this election accelerate the process of notabilisation of the National Rally that we see in the hemicycle?
The notabilisation process that we are beginning to see emerging in the hemicycle does not only take place in the hemicycle.
I am struck, for example, by the fact that access to the media, which was previously reserved for a certain number of spokespersons for the movement who could be seen on the sets of the news channels, has become much broader .
An example passed under the radar, in local television or on the local antennas of national networks (channels which have local variations), we see more often, by a certain mathematical effect because there are 89 deputies, the local RN deputy .
All this will infuse.
It's not just about being on the sets of the major news channels continuously or at 8 p.m., you also have to have your place in the regional daily press,
in the televised information media which are those watched by the inhabitants.
I have been struck since the legislative elections by this fact which is mentioned very little.
The second thing is that, quite naturally, the fact of sitting in the Assembly gives notabilisation, unless one chooses, like rebellious France, to have an attitude of rupture with the habits and customs of Parliament, or that, like the 35 FN deputies of 1986, we are totally ostracized by the business of detail and the choice to use the platform as a doctrinal platform.
Indeed, if one comes to the Assembly with the will to be in the opposition, but constructive, that notabilizes.
You are in contact with your peers, other MPs, and if you are someone who is civil beyond political opposition, you forge personal ties.
You talk, you argue, you confront and finally you insert yourself into the system.
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There was indeed the speech of the oldest member who was not really demonized, but since then we have heard nothing.
There will certainly be people during the legislature who will push the cursor too far, but there will also be parliamentarians who will prove to be more efficient than others, more present, more active, more technical than others.
For the moment, the results of the notabilisation are rather positive.
Jordan Bardella has strengths and weaknesses.
He is very young, which can be a handicap but also an advantage for a party that wants to break with its past.
Jean-Yves Camus
Is Jordan Bardella the favorite candidate in this election?
Marine Le Pen said she would not decide between the two candidates.
However, I had understood that by entrusting Jordan Bardella with the presidency, admittedly interim, of the party, she had in a certain way made a choice.
In any case, it is the militants who will have the key to the vote and in the end, in any case, there will be a synthesis.
Jordan Bardella has strengths and weaknesses.
He is very young, which can be a handicap but also an advantage for a party that wants to break with its past.
Moreover, his electoral performance is not that of Louis Aliot.
He obtained in Ile-de-France, at the regionals of June 2021, a rather disappointing score (15.21% in the first round).
He does not have a territorial anchoring as precise as Louis Aliot in Perpignan who conquered a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants at the end of a work of establishment extremely followed over the long term.
Louis Aliot has for him his local presence, this knowledge of the workings of the movement, of the men and women who make it up;
he is a member of 1988. Jordan Bardella finally has his youth on his side, this image of a politician born with the 2017 generation, with those who emerged in the wake of Marine Le Pen's very good performance at the presidential.
These are people who came to the National Rally for Marine Le Pen, on her ideological program and for whom the National Front is something much more distant.
Indeed, they only knew him at the end.
Jordan Bardella also has the advantage of his popular origins in Seine-Saint-Denis, which he highlights, and his meritocratic career.
Do other figures emerge thanks to the National Assembly?
Yes, that of Jean Philippe Tanguy is the result of his interventions in the session, at the podium.
In a legislature, you have to observe several things: those who are efficient in the gallery, indeed, that counts;
but also, and it's still too early to establish a list, the deputies who work in committee and Tanguy will be one of them.
This work remains the core of parliamentary activity.
MEPs are often criticized for not being present enough in plenary session, and this is understandable, but if they also invest in specific technical subjects, and their work in committee is serious and constant, they fulfill their mandate.
It will be necessary to see which are those who invest a particular field of the political debate: some will be interested in questions related to fishing;
others to agriculture, economy, defense or foreign affairs.
We will be able, through work in committee, through the bills tabled, by the amendments tabled and voted on or not, to draw up a list of those who bring competence and seriousness to the standardization work that Marine Le Pen is implementing. work.
It's not necessarily the ones we see in the gallery.
In the Assembly there is real underground work.