The mines are serious, Wednesday November 13 evening, at the Paris court where the trial of the case of the European parliamentary assistants of the National Rally (RN) has been held for six weeks. In the front row on the dock, Marine Le Pen tries to maintain an impassive face when the prosecution demands a five-year prison sentence for her, including two firm, but adjustable, fines of 300,000 euros and five years of imprisonment. ineligibility with provisional execution.
After a few seconds of hesitation, the member for Pas-de-Calais began her counterattack in front of the cameras posted in front of the courtroom. “The only thing that interested the prosecution was Marine Le Pen to be able to request her exclusion from political life, (…) and then the National Rally to be able to ruin the party”she denounces, regarding the firm fine of 2.3 million euros demanded by the prosecutors. A rhetoric echoed during his appearance on TF1 on Friday November 15: “It is my political death that is being demanded”insisted the leader.
This is a notable change in tone compared to the start of the trial which began on September 30. With her staff, Marine Le Pen, a lawyer by training, had first chosen to highlight her good faith and preserve the image of the party by insisting on two points. “There was no fictitious employment or personal enrichment, unlike the Fillon affairexplains an RN executive. This is a debate on the function of a MEP’s parliamentary assistants. We think it’s normal for him to be in politics, and for him to work for the party.” The European Parliament is suing the National Rally for having paid collaborators of MEPs with funds from Brussels, when they were not really carrying out work with parliamentarians, but rather in the service of the RN. “A complex issue, which people don’t care a bit about”we continue to believe in Marine Le Pen’s entourage.
But the legal ax that could put Marine Le Pen out of the game in 2027 made the RN change gear: the strategy of de-dramatization was replaced by all-out communication to denounce a political trial. “We did not expect such harsh and disproportionate requisitions, nor the request for provisional execution”recognizes an advisor. Stunned, the troops quickly put themselves in battle order to organize a “media counter-offensive”.
The vice-president of the movement, Sébastien Chenu, thus targeted BFMTV-RMC “a public prosecutor’s office serving a political mission”while on France 2, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, deputy for the Somme, denigrated “almost fanatical requisitions”. The RN elected officials also massively relayed a short sentence pronounced by the prosecutor about one of the defendants, the former MEP Jean-François Jalkh, against whom she did not want to request an acquittal because “That [lui] would hurt too much. The proof, according to them, that the prosecution “wants to pay for the RN”.
Speeches likely to mobilize their voters, according to political scientist Luc Rouban, specialist in the extreme right. “This trial allows them to support their rhetoric of a party that is fighting against a system that is fiercely against them. The RN can come out of this strengthened.” Especially since he received the support of his ally Eric Ciotti and his opponent Eric Zemmour, at the head of the Reconquest party.
“Since yesterday, my circle loop is overflowing”says Philippe Ballard, RN deputy for Oise. “It’s scandalous, shameful”write to him the 300 activists gathered in this messaging. “It unites activists and supporters like never before. We also receive a lot of emails, three quarters of which are messages of support”continues the parliamentarian. In the party, we are banking on this mobilization and we even intend to fuel it. “I think outrage is a very powerful engine in politics”theorizes Philippe Olivier, MEP and advisor to Marine Le Pen.
“We had 11 million voters, they will remobilize and will certainly bring others with them.”
Philippe OlivierRN MEP
To organize this militant mobilization, the party launched a campaign on social networks bearing the image of its candidate, with the keyword #JesoutiensMarine, as well as a petition entitled “Support Marine!”. According to the headquarters, it collected more than 100,000 signatures on Friday, as many as the number of members claimed by the party.
“Victimization is a process that allows you to mobilize your troops”analyzes Noëlline Castagnez, professor of contemporary history at the University of Orléans*. “Marine Le Pen risks a lot from a judicial and political point of view, which is why she must have exemplary behavior during the trial, so that the victimization will be even greater if the court pronounces a sanction. She allows thus his party can unite in the face of adversity.”
In a letter sent Thursday to party members, its president, Jordan Bardella, puts forward an additional argument to challenge his base. He writes that the prosecution “wants to deprive millions of French people of their vote”.
For the historian Pierre Allorant*, “the party adopts a Trumpist posture of breaking with the establishment, denouncing justice at the behest of those in power.” But it is not certain that this speech extends beyond its ranks. “A party in the process of de-demonization and which aspires to alternation cannot question the judicial institution too violently.warns the professor at the University of Orléans. Two unexpected allies nevertheless came forward to criticize the possible ineligibility of the RN headliner. The former Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin estimates on“it would be deeply shocking if Marine Le Pen were deemed ineligible”. Another Macronist, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, writes on the same network as “the automaticity of ineligibility penalties” East “a dangerous principle, which undermines the democratic debate”.
This trial also confirms the putting into orbit of Marine Le Pen’s dolphin. While the MP’s political future has never been so uncertain, her number two is in full promotion of her book and is ready. “If she is ineligible, we have a plan B, it’s Jordan Bardella”said, without really wanting to believe it, a party executive. “I think it’s too early for him, and he knows it. Today, our best chance of winning the presidential election is Marine.”
But a rushed candidacy from Jordan Bardella would not only have bad sides for the far-right party. “The very name of Le Pen is the marker which still handicaps the normalization of the RN”suggests the historian Pierre Allorant. “This could be the jackpot for the party, which would benefit on the one hand from victimization among its more radical electorate and, on the other, from demonization thanks to Jordan Bardella.”
In the party, the preferred scenario remains that of a fourth candidacy from Marine Le Pen. “Marine’s greatest achievement is having put Jordan Bardella in the saddle”praises Moselle MP Kevin Pfeffer. “But it’s not for now, I hope…” We will have to wait for the court’s deliberations, in the first quarter of 2025, to know whether this handover will be rushed.
*co-author with Walter Badier of the work Political trials: platform or springboard for the opposition? (Rennes University Press, 2024)
