“We must have neither contempt nor moral overhang vis-à-vis the voters who have chosen the far right”

2023-05-31 12:04:01

LNoise should not distract us from the real political risk. La France insoumise is deafening, but condemns itself by its excesses. It is the National Rally (RN) that must be fought as a priority in the face of the growing threat of his accession to power in 2027.

Read also: Macron distances himself from Borne on the RN and believes that the “fight” against the far right “no longer goes through moral arguments”

The trivialization of far-right populism is globalized: in many countries, alone or in coalition, it has come to power through the ballot box giving the image of a reassuring degagism. The feeling that “we don’t count, we are not listened to, we are being lied to” and more particularly, in France, the idea that the republican promise is no longer kept, that merit and decency are crumbling and, above all, that public action for decades has been losing effectiveness generate a dull anger that feeds it.

The RN program has no credibility to become tomorrow a viable alternative for our country. We must demonstrate this, without contempt or moral overhang vis-à-vis the voters who have chosen the far right. It is imperative not to make his announced victory a fatality.

Ideological fundamentals

The RN would protect workers and purchasing power? No. It offers 0% VAT on basic necessities. In Spain, for a rise in food prices comparable to ours, VAT at 0% has inflated distributors’ margins with no savings for households. He also opposed measures allowing a gain for the middle classes, such as the abolition of housing tax or price shields. Its position on the rise in the minimum wage changes with each election. Its consistency can be found in the exemptions from employers’ contributions and taxes for companies – not very beneficial to employees and costly for social protection.

The RN would have changed? No. The ideological fundamentals are still there. Witnesses, the RN deputies were the only ones not to get up in the hemicycle in homage to the mayor of Saint-Brevin (Loire-Atlantique), victim of violence from the ultra-right. Old party friends – including Axel Loustau, the former treasurer of Marine Le Pen’s micro-party, always faithful communication provider of the RN to the European Parliament – are still taking part in the hooded and more than frightening demonstrations of the ultra-right in Paris.

Read also: Elisabeth Borne attacks the RN, “heir to Pétain”, and LFI, which “does not play the game of democratic debate in the National Assembly”

And the RN still has room for maneuver to water down its radical positions like Giorgia Meloni, whose techno-sovereignism on European or international commitments ended up reassuring circles beyond the classic electoral core of the far right. Italian.

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