2023-07-03 18:44:20
The president of the National Rally (RN) group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen, at the Palais-Bourbon, June 6, 2023. JULIEN MUGUET FOR “THE WORLD”
In the early days of the 2005 riots, Jean-Marie Le Pen, then president of the National Front (FN) was on vacation. He only emerged from the silence after ten nights of fires, with a simple watchword: “The facts speak for me. » The suburbs were burning and France was thinking of Le Pen, from political analysts to people questioned in the street. Three years had passed since his accession to the second round of the presidential election, followed by immense demonstrations; the riots had put him back in the saddle in the polls.
Follow our live: Urban riots, live: the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, during a support rally: “It is democracy itself that is under attack”
In the following days, the FN (which became Rassemblement national, RN, in 2018) had printed posters proclaiming the prescience of its president – “Immigration, explosion of the suburbs… Le Pen said it well” – and organized a protest. When he returned to the media, Jean-Marie Le Pen displayed a satisfaction that contrasted with the gravity of the moment: he was amused to see Philippe de Villiers, then president of the Movement for France, running to his right, and the Minister of inside, Nicolas Sarkozy, resume his excesses of language and, partially, his diagnoses.
Every day, La Poste delivered to the “Paquebot”, the former party headquarters located in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine), new membership checks, and Louis Aliot, then young secretary general of the FN – today now mayor of Perpignan – predicted victory in the 2007 presidential election: “We are not invited to debates on television because we would score points. It won’t change anything. They don’t see us, but they sense us, and they wait for us, like Zorro. » Eighteen months later, “Zorro”, swallowed up by Mr. Sarkozy, won only 10% of the votes in the first round.
Read our 2005 archive: The National Front and Philippe de Villiers rely on an influx of membership
At the time, the vice-president of the FN, Marine Le Pen, had the enthusiasm of her political youth and proposed martial measures: application of the state of emergency ” in all the territories concerned”, “deposit in the police stations of all weapons and ammunition”, “house arrest of certain people and authorization of administrative searches day and night”.
“Dual Strategy”
Eighteen years later, Marine Le Pen is one of the very few political figures to have survived several cycles of “clearance”. It is no longer time for her to make up for her father’s absence from the media, nor to make an assault on radical proposals in order to exist; the president of the RN group in the National Assembly wants to be in overhang and avoids the escalation of words and proposals, in a curious mimicry with the paternal attitude of 2005. “It’s our trump card; once you’ve knocked it down, there’s nothing heavier behind it, likes to repeat Renaud Labaye, his right arm in the Hemicycle. When only Marine Le Pen was known in the party, she had to speak up right away. The situation has changed. »
You have 64.89% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#discreet #Marine #Pen #advantage #troubles #refocus