Marine Le Pen warned her relatives during a lunch before Christmas: in the spring, the routine of the National Assembly will begin to bore her. To protect herself better, she is preparing to step outside, smell the air of the times and perfect her international stature in view of the presidential election of 2027. On Wednesday January 18, she will make an express visit to Africa – in a country kept secret, the party having had its share of failed attempts on the continent. The following week, she will visit her Portuguese allies of Chega, the rising populist party, then attend the wishes of the town hall of Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), in her constituency, with her friends dismissed from the direction of the National Rally (RN), Steeve Briois and Bruno Bilde.
Other trips will follow, less to meet RN activists than to meet the French, on current issues. “She sees the risk of being locked up in the Assembly, considers the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, vice-president of the party. It’s going well, there’s been good feedback, but it needs to be put into practice on the ground through visits to concrete subjects debated at the Assembly. »
The risks identified are of three types: disconnection from the field; weariness and fatigue; the image. The few who dare to advise her encourage her to “going beyond parliamentary life” so as not to become “a chosen one above ground, encrusted, an Assembly rat”. A pitfall that some advisers had denounced from the legislative elections, when she had taken over the management of the RN group, a time-consuming position. “She has such an agenda in her role as group president that, if she does not voluntarily free herself from time, she can spend her life in the Assembly, observes Bruno Bilde, MP for Pas-de-Calais. Generally speaking, Marine always wants to avoid the hum of functions. »
“I am in high orbit”
To shut oneself up in the Assembly is also to scrap with deputies over sometimes insignificant amendments; far from the stature of a stateswoman claimed by Marine Le Pen, who believes she is playing in a court where only Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon invite themselves. One cannot enter the Palais-Bourbon, the other has left it. This makes her a major figure in the Hemicycle, but is it really useful? “Jacques Chirac, François Hollande or François Mitterrand were not group presidents, notes the communicator Arnaud Stephan, one of his advisers during the presidential campaign The dividends of his action in the National Assembly are not easy to achieve: there are few possible victories and not many people watch the Parliamentary Channel. We are not under the IIIe Republic. Getting out of this is proof of his political sense. »
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