But where the hell is going Marine Le Pen ? For the past few days, she has been in Senegal, where she is now completing a three-day journey intended to refine her international stature. And, also, to allow him to get rid a little more of the racist tinsel that have stuck to his party since its founding half a century ago.
Admittedly, she will make her return to the national field this Thursday, on the occasion of the first day of strikes and demonstrations against pension reform. But without parading alongside trade unions. Because the latter, despite the strong progression of the Le Pen vote among the militants of certain centrals, still hold it as persona non grata in their processions. And because the interested party has only moderate desire, in accordance with the history of her movement, to pound the pavement alongside organizations, many of which are classified on the left.
The desire to take the air
But where is Marine Le Pen going? Not at the demonstration against the pension reform, therefore. But, also, less and less on the benches of the National Assembly. In recent days, she has expressed the desire to get some fresh air, and the field. Six months ago, the (future ex) president of the National Rally (RN) landed there at the head of the first political force at the Palais Bourbon – divine surprise that she herself had not anticipated. And, with this phalanx of 89 deputies, undertook the final phase of its demonization enterprise, helped in this by the virulent excesses and the permanent guerrilla warfare of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Insoumis.
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The leadership of his parliamentary group, the affirmation of his leadership over the oppositions, the declared desire to comply with the rules of the democratic game have certainly enabled him, in this political theater that is the hemicycle, to refine his stature and undertake to erase the anti-parliamentary culture that sticks to the skin of the French extreme right.
An impact on his popularity rating?
But a semester has passed, and the leader of the RN already gives the impression of wanting to take off. As if legislative work bored him, as deeply bored him at the time with the day-to-day management of the far-right party, where Jordan Bardella replaced her. This explains Senegal, but also its presence, last Saturday, in a small town in the Marne, in support of an RN candidate contesting a partial legislative election there. Which announces other trips.
Not sure, however, that Marine Le Pen, who could give the feeling of no longer knowing where she lives, suffers on the survey plan from her absence in the streets, and from greater discretion at the Palais Bourbon. The same way as the cry from the heart of the deputy of Fournas – “let him return to Africa” –, which had caused a scandal, had not had the slightest impact on the rating of the leader of the nationalist party. The main thing, for her, seems today to continue to capitalize on the opposition to Emmanuel Macron, with a view to a third presidential final, which, this one, will not be played against the latter. As if, basically, there was only the presidential election today that interested Marine Le Pen.