After Marine Le Pen
As the far-right leader heads for yet another likely
loss, some in her party are already looking past next year’s presidential
election.
BY CLEA
CAULCUTT
April 29,
2021 4:03 am
PARIS —
Every week, a group of members of France’s far-right National Rally log on to a
video call to discuss politics. They debate electoral strategy, gossip about
who’s rising in the party and bemoan their leader and candidate for president
in 2022, Marine Le Pen.
“We all
have the same conviction that Marine Le Pen won’t win the next elections,” says
one participant of the call and a member of the National Council, a 120-member
committee that decides on the party’s policies.
“We need to
find a new candidate,” said the participant, who asked not be quoted by name
for fear of being sidelined.
The group
of discontents, a mix of National Council members, regional heavyweights and
local representatives, meet online on Fridays. Some are chatterboxes, says the
participant; others speak rarely and listen attentively. Another participant
says the talks are kept secret from the rest of the party. Some in the group —
but not many — have suggested replacing Le Pen before next year’s election.
As the
party’s longtime leader embarks on her third attempt to storm the Elysée, few
expect her to do better than she did the last time, when she came in second
place in the first round of voting, only to be rejected in the runoff against
French President Emmanuel Macron.
It’s a view
shared by many in the National Rally. And so some are already looking beyond
the election to ask: After she loses, what’s next?
“We’ll see
what the future of the National Rally will be,” says Nicolas Bay, a National
Rally MEP and a critical backer of Le Pen —who says he does not take part in
the online talks. “It’s very possible that it won’t necessarily be someone who
bears the name Le Pen who will lead the party.”
Brand Le Pen
Marine Le
Pen, who took over the party’s leadership from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen,
is a brand name in France — and one of the National Rally’s greatest assets.
But some also see her as one of its greatest obstacles to winning the
presidency.
While polls
show Le Pen’s hardline ideas on immigration and security have become more
mainstream, many voters still think of her as either incompetent or scary.
“The
[National Rally] vote has spread to all the strata of society,” says Frédéric
Dabi, deputy director general for polling agency Ifop, who recently published a
study on its electorate. “Marine Le Pen has become the No. 1 candidate for
employees, and her ratings among the elderly, managers and graduates, where the
RN is not usually strong, are not negligible.”
The same
poll, however, showed that Le Pen’s image had worsened since the last
presidential election. Another recent study found that 56 percent of the French
said they found Le Pen frightening.
While some
polls have put Le Pen within reach of Macron in the second round, the vast
majority predict her falling short once again.
Le Pen has
tried to counter the negative perceptions by giving her interviews a more
personal touch and talking about her feelings and her family. “It’s time to
drop my armor,” she said in northern France earlier this month. “The French
need to know me better, to be able to judge me better.
“Maybe when
you are a woman in the political fight, used to taking knocks, you start to
appear tough, rigid,” she added. “I think I have the maturity today, to drop
this toughness. Under the warrior, there is also a mother.”
Is her
strategy working?
“It’s too
early to tell” said Sylvain Crépon, a specialist on the far right. “One year
before the last election, her polling figures were close to current
projections, and she still lost significantly to Macron.”
France’s
two-round presidential system makes it difficult for polarizing candidates like
Le Pen, who have failed to build bridges with other political parties.
In 2017,
she came in second in the first round with 21 percent of the vote compared with
24 percent for Macron. But after the rest of the political spectrum called on
their supporters to vote against her, she was trounced in the second round,
with 34 percent compared with 66 percent for Macron.
Some think
that Macron is unpopular enough among left-wing voters that they will refuse to
back him in another face-off against Le Pen.
The French
president “is not a dam [holding back the far right],” Olivier Faure, leader of
the Socialist party, said in a recent interview. “He’s a bridge.”
“The duel
that we have been promised [between Le Pen and Macron] is dangerous for our
country,” he said, adding that left-wing voters felt betrayed by the
president’s policies after the last election.
But Le Pen
has struggled to completely shake off her reputation for dangerous extremism.
Last week,
she came out in support of a controversial open letter written by 20 retired
generals, arguing that France was headed toward a “civil war” caused by
Islamism and the scapegoating of police officers by politicians. Her support
for soldiers who warn that the army might have to intervene to save French
citizens is dangerous territory for Le Pen.
It’s a
reminder of the tightrope she is walking between her efforts to normalize the
National Rally and her hard-line reading of the perils facing France.
Third time unlucky
One cold
morning in northern France, a dozen National Rally members turned out to show
their support to Le Pen. The National Rally leader was fist-bumping supporters
and taking selfies, touring France ahead of the regional elections in June.
Not
everybody in attendance was an enthusiastic supporter.
“I think
the name Le Pen has had its day,” said Dorothée, a part-time shop-owner who has
been campaigning for the far right for decades. She said she preferred the
party’s vice president, Jordan Bardella, a 25-year-old MEP and rising star in
the party, who “would be able to put France on his feet.”
“He’s got
charisma, speaks well,” she added. “He would be more energizing than Le Pen.”
Le Pen may
have gone a long way toward detoxifying her party, dissociating it from its
roots as a one-issue xenophobic force and disavowing her own calls to leave the
eurozone. But voters have soured on her personally.
“She
doesn’t cut it; she lacks charisma,” said Lili, an apple-grower, who sells her
own produce on the market. “She should have moved on. I would have preferred
her niece [Marion Maréchal, a far-right politician turned political institute
director], who speaks well and she listens.”
It’s not
just the rank and file who are already looking past Le Pen.
According
to several elected officials, there are secret talks taking place in the
National Rally to prepare for the future.
“We know
that the next election is make or break,” said the participant in the call who
is also a member of the party’s National Council.
“We are
thinking about what comes next,” the participant said. “Let’s say, the talks
are a bit under the radar. We used to meet every week at a restaurant, now we
talk online,” he said.
According
to the participant, some of members of the group support Le Pen’s pugnacious
niece Maréchal. Others support Eric Zemmour, a far-right television pundit —
neither Maréchal nor Zemmour have unveiled any presidential ambitions. This
week, Zemmour was dragged into a controversy about his integrity, after a local
councilor from the Socialist Party accused him of sexually harrassing her in
the 2000s. Zemmour has not responded to French media’s requests for comments.
“Discussions
are taking place, but they are happening very discreetly,” says André Murawski,
a regional councilor who left the National Rally in 2018. “Marine Le Pen
completely controls the party, and it’s difficult to push for an alternative
candidate.”
The closer
you get to the top of the party, the less likely members will talk of a future
that doesn’t include Le Pen.
Asked about
the eventuality of a third defeat for the party’s leader, David Rachline, party
heavyweight and mayor of the town of Fréjus, answered: “First we’ll be winning
2022, and then I’ll be working on Le Pen’s campaign for a second mandate.”
But the
financial difficulties of the party — France’s campaign watchdog recently
revealed that it is over €22 million in debt, more than any other party — could
accelerate change.
The lady’s
not for turning
Many party
insiders greet talk of ousting Le Pen with chuckle. Saying she won’t go easily
is putting it lightly. “They are all scared of her,” said a former party
adviser. “There are always plots against her, but there is always one who tells
on the others.
“There is
only one leader, and she takes all the decisions,” the adviser said.
Previous
leadership challenges in the party have featured all the brutality and
ruthlessness of a family feud. In 2015, Le Pen ousted her father, who had
founded the party, then known as the National Front. Le Pen’s niece Maréchal
and her then right-hand man Florian Philippot left the party after the 2017
defeat.
Insiders
describe Le Pen as a shrewd infighter, keeping an iron grip on the party by
ousting or ostracizing potential rivals. Her father made a career out of repeated
presidential losses, driving the debate to the right while enjoying an
otherwise successful political career. There’s no reason his daughter can’t do
the same.
Today, the
party’s top brass is the most united it has been for a long time.
“There’s no
internal democracy in the party, no fiefdoms, no internal fights between
different personalities,” says Sylvain Crépon, specialist of the far right. “As
soon as a leader emerges, Marine does what her father did. She removes them, or
marginalizes them.”
Bay, the
critical backer of Le Pen, was sidelined from the party’s committee in charge
of vetting candidates last year, in a move that was seen at the time as
retribution for his proximity to Maréchal.
Bay
downplayed the affair: “I don’t need to be in all the committees,” he said.
But while
he acknowledged that Le Pen currently has “the support of the party and the
voters,” he questioned whether that would still hold true forever.
“I think
there are personalities of the RN that are emerging,” he said. The question is
whether any of them would stand a chance against Le Pen.
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