In her last meeting before the ballot scheduled for this Sunday, Marine Le Pen repeats once again the slogan that accompanied her throughout the election campaign: “If the people vote, they win!”, A way to try to mobilize her base , prepared for the best result in the history of the Rassemblement national.
Surprised by the return of the Republican front, theunion sacrée of all the parties against the far right that he believed by now relegated to the past, Le Pen spends his penultimate day of campaigning in the north, in the lands that vote en masse for her and her party, almost as if she wanted to feel at home after two weeks of harsh attacks from the macronist camp and the traditional press.
In Arras, in front of more than three thousand people, Le Pen admits that he has “suffered greatly from the injustices and persecutions I have suffered because of the name I bear”, an implicit admission of his inability, despite great strides in normalization , to become a candidate like any other.
Between March and April all the ingredients for a tight ballot seemed to have been brought together. The raid on the scene of the polemicist Éric Zemmour had monopolized the attention of the media and removed the anathemas from Le Pen, who was able to conduct an election campaign without fireworks, almost in the shadows, between markets, small towns, public meetings without large crowds. All to hammer only one concept, the loss of purchasing power of the French, a choice that has allowed it to appear less extremist and closer to the real concerns of the less well-to-do social classes.
And instead, judging by the tenor of the “new” campaign that began immediately after the results of the first round were published on April 10, the mountain to climb to win the presidential elections was still too steep. The daily poll published by the Ipsos institute on Thursday afternoon is relentless: 57.5% for Macron and 42.5% for Le Pen, with a dynamic clearly in favor of the president, who gained more than four points in less than ten days. The lepenist victory is not impossible, especially due to the undecided, and Brexit reminds us that electoral campaigns serve to subvert the forecasts. However, it remains unlikely.
The debate on Wednesday evening, the last useful moment to change the history of this ballot, does not seem to have brought much help to the candidate of the Rassemblement national. On the contrary, you have crystallized the balance of power. In a complete reversal of roles, Macron behaved in an offensive way, as if he were the challenger, thus managing to speak little of his balance as president and on the contrary underline the inconsistencies of his opponent’s program, which on the other hand she appeared defensive, as if she wanted to limit the damage.
The measured and composed attitude allowed Marine Le Pen to avoid big mistakes and wash away the shame of the disastrous TV confrontation of 2017, a real trauma that deeply marked her five years in the opposition. But reaching the minimum goal was not enough to win and, on the contrary, it confirmed and accentuated the trend of these days: according to a survey published by the Elabe institute that same evening, 61% of the French believe that Macron was more convincing, compared to 39% who found Marine Le Pen better.
Beyond the personal behaviors, which also count in a two-way confrontation in an election as personalized as the presidential, the real great limitation of the Rassemblement national candidate is and remains the program.
The proposals are still too contradictory and difficult to defend in a heated debate: the de facto exit from the European Union and the lack of attention to the financial coverage of some reforms, such as the one on pensions or on wage increases, push away part of the Older electorate worried about his fortune in the event of a Lepenist victory. Not to mention the huge changes in the constitution, in which Le Pen would like to introduce the national preference to make discrimination against foreigners legal, a real red line for those with a republican sensitivity.
What will happen on Monday? Marine Le Pen hinted during the electoral campaign that she will not be re-nominated in 2027, a choice that opens up many scenarios for the future of the Rassemblement national and will probably answer a question that French public opinion has been asking for a long time: is it stronger the symbol or the name?
Start a new Thread