While the left would probably not entrust him with the keys to Matignon, you now only have the name of the “Mélenchon peril” on your lips. Isn’t he rather your best ally for remobilizing?
Remind me which character was the first to appear in reaction on Sunday evening on television? Mr. Mélenchon, and his staff, repeating that the left would not do without them, and that everything was thanks to them. That says something. It would rather be Mélenchon’s comrades who should ask him if he has not become their worst ally of circumstance. At the RN, we have never stopped saying that this alliance was extremely dangerous.
Despite this large success, your quest for an absolute majority seems to have frayed on Sunday as the evening and the results went on. What reserves of votes do you have?
Speaking of votes, it is worth remembering that we collected more than 10 million, which is exceptional in the first round of such an election. And in the second, we are present in 444 constituencies. The reservations are undoubtedly to be found among the voters of the Republicans who are not represented and, finally, among all those who do not want this left-wing front at the head of the country. That is a lot of people, including the Macronists.
“I don’t deny a certain form of stress.”
Against the backdrop of the Republican arc, the contagious decline in the number of triangular contests does not suit you at all…
I don’t think so, no. I experienced it myself in Perpignan, when everyone was against me and a significant part of the Renaissance electorate finally switched to my candidacy in the second round. For ten months we’ve been repeating that the RN is far-right and, in the end, 10 million French people chose us. People are no longer under the yoke of this demonization that Mr Macron was still banking on.
Can you confirm, however, that Jordan Bardella will refuse Matignon if he only obtains a relative majority?
Yes. It would make no sense to go there to be taken down at the first motion of censure. As for governing like others at 49.3, that would be the worst method, the worst message.
Wouldn’t this actually be a step backwards in order to better jump into the trap that Emmanuel Macron may have set? That of exercising a power made even more thankless by cohabitation?
Honestly, no, even though it’s a question that many people ask me in the street. However, curiously, most of them tell us not to go there if we don’t really have the power. It’s also the eternal debate on cohabitation, the one that already arose in 1986 and 1993 for the right. Chirac went there with absolute, even ultra-absolute, majorities, but by giving up on many aspects of his program. So imagine the thing with a relative majority…
What if you were actually just caught up, these days, by the fear of disappointing…
I don’t deny that there is some form of stress, but we have to start somewhere. We will be judged on the exercise of responsibilities, and we are preparing for it.
