Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which prides itself on its role as arbiter, blew hot and cold this weekend on the government of the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, between promises not to participate in “the disorder” and threats of censorship.
Is this a way of revisiting the game of cat and mouse? While Michel Barnier continued his consultations on Sunday to form his ministerial team and define his roadmap, the National Rally, whose leaders saturated the media space this weekend, made it known that it intended more than ever to place itself at the center of the game.
Its armed wing: the contingent of 126 deputies in the Assembly – and even 142 with the support of Eric Ciotti’s allies – which could hold in its hands the future of the future government.
“We are not giving carte blanche. If over the weeks, the French people are once again forgotten or mistreated, we will not hesitate to censure the government,” thundered Marine Le Pen on Sunday from her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, where she was making her return.
In front of the press and in her speech, the leader of the RN deputies alternated between good points for Michel Barnier and warnings.
For her, there is no question of condemning him out of hand. Like the RN MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who after hastily describing Mr Barnier on Wednesday before his appointment as a “fossil of political life” and “one of the stupidest politicians of the Fifth Republic”, had to eat his hat on Sunday on BFMTV by admitting that he should not have “expressed himself in this way towards another politician”.
Ms Le Pen welcomed Mr Barnier’s search for “compromise”, in line with what she expected from a Prime Minister “respectful of the 11 million voters of the National Rally”.
She also considered that the former European Commissioner and minister of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy was not “responsible for the record” of Emmanuel Macron, in particular for the “almost untenable budgetary equation” left “as a legacy”. And this even if the right LR, that is to say “the political family of Mr. Barnier”, “accompanied all these errors over the years without ever agreeing to censure Emmanuel Macron”.
– “Red lines” –
While on Saturday, the leader of the RN Jordan Bardella had assured that he did not want to participate in “institutional disorder and democratic chaos” by immediately overthrowing Mr. Barnier, Ms. Le Pen insisted on Sunday, judging that “it would not be very reasonable to carry out censorship after her general policy speech.”
With a codicil, however: that this declaration, announced by Mr. Barnier for “the beginning of October”, corresponds “on a significant number of subjects to the hopes that we have”.
Because for the RN, Mr. Barnier is “under surveillance”, as Jordan Bardella put it on Saturday morning. “It’s not a threat, it’s an arithmetic fact”, Ms. Le Pen defended on Sunday.
“This is not a government under surveillance, it is a government under the benevolence of the extreme right,” ex-Insoumis MP Alexis Corbière grumbled on LCI.
Eager to weigh in, Ms Le Pen intends “in the coming weeks to indicate to the Prime Minister the red lines and the measures that we consider important and whose consideration is essential”. By calling on Emmanuel Macron to resort to referendums, in particular on “purchasing power, immigration, security, health”.
The RN’s parliamentary session, from Thursday to Sunday in Paris, should allow the party with the flame to clarify its expectations. Mr. Tanguy said he was watching the head of government at the turning point on “tax justice”, in particular “the weight of VAT and taxation on fuel, electricity, gas”.
“Will Mr. Barnier, on immigration, really implement the measures he promised during the Republican primary” in 2021, when he called for a moratorium on entries, Mr. Tanguy asked.
The government casting will be scrutinized because “it would not make sense for Mr. Barnier (…) to appoint a minister who insulted us,” argued Mr. Tanguy, citing the case of the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti. The deputy mentioned, however, “competent people on the left,” such as the former Minister of the Economy Arnaud Montebourg.
Will Mr Barnier hear him? He continued his round table on Sunday by receiving the leaders of Horizons in the morning, including his predecessor at Matignon Edouard Philippe, before welcoming the head of the MoDem François Bayrou in the afternoon.
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