Marine Le Pen’s trap closes

Marine Le Pen has been able to measure, since the end of November, the influence she has acquired on the French political scene. The president of the National Rally (RN) parliamentary group first held the Prime Minister at gunpoint by raising the stakes around the amendments she defended as part of the discussion of the finance and security financing bills. social. In a few days, she obtained the abandonment of taxes on electricity, the overhaul of state medical aid, the reform of the legislative voting method, the cancellation of the reimbursement of certain medications.

Then, believing she had played enough, she chose to overthrow Michel Barnier and his government. She announced, Monday, December 2, that the 124 deputies of her group would vote on the two motions of censure which were to be debated on Wednesday, December 4 in the hemicycle of the National Assembly: the one tabled by her party, but also the one drafted by her opponent, the left, since it is necessary to combine votes to obtain censorship. If they agree to comply, the RN deputies should vote on a motion which denounces, with regard to immigration, ” theirs vilest obsessions ».

If everything goes as planned by Marine Le Pen, there will no longer be a prime minister, a government or financial texts in the middle of the week to govern the action of the State and Social Security in 2025. A plunge into the unknown, without plan B or alternative majority, the consequences of which Michel Barnier outlined on Tuesday, December 3. “The situation is already difficult. Everything will be more difficult and more serious,” he summarized, listing the political uncertainty, the rise in interest rates and the losses that those whom Marine Le Pen claims to protect will automatically suffer, due to lack of texts.

A country in tension

Therein lie the limits of Marine Le Pen's coup: no obvious gain and the risk of worrying the clienteles that the RN assiduously courts, retirees in search of tranquility, business leaders in search of stability and visibility. In a few minutes, it shattered the normalization strategy that it had consistently pursued.

Gone is the myth of the quiet march towards power, chipping away at the veneer of respectability with which she had wanted to adorn her troops. Under the pretext of responding to the anger of her base, she let her anger explode, which has accompanied her since the indictments of the trial of the European parliamentary assistants of the National Front (former name of the RN). The judgment will be known on March 31. She risks ineligibility.

The far right is only strong when those who claim to fight it offer it a foothold. Everything separates Jean-Luc Mélenchon from Marine Le Pen except for a common objective: obtaining the resignation of Emmanuel Macron as quickly as possible. This is why La France insoumise is in no way offended by the “coalition of opposites” which is putting the country in tension today.

Within the Socialist Party, consciences are less clear, but the head of government has done nothing over the last three months to try to build solid bridges with the moderate left. His tropism was on the right, the obsession of the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, the only star of the government, was to recover the electorate who had left the RN at the cost of an escalation around immigration. a tripartism without a majority, the game was particularly dangerous. The trap has closed.