From our journalist at the Maison de la Mutualité (Paris),
It was to be a great moment for the National Rally. For the first time in fifty years, the president elected by the militants is not a member of the Le Pen* family. The crushing victory of Jordan Bardella (84.84%) against Louis Aliot this Saturday was to be a symbolic coronation: the culmination of an activist journey started at the age of 16 in Seine-Saint-Denis and the advent of the most talented member of the “Marine” generation. An ideal profile to pursue the demonization of the movement. But politics very often reserves surprises, and sometimes the worst ones. Because the day before, and for the second time only since 1958, an RN deputy received the heaviest sanction in the National Assembly, after comments deemed “racist” by all the other groups.
An outing that spoils the RN party
In a few hours, two images collide in a cruel way for the party to the flame. This Saturday, at the end of the morning, Jordan Bardella rises triumphantly to the podium, acclaimed by party executives and thousands of supporters, gathered in the Parisian room of Mutualité. The day before, in the hemicycle, the same elected officials of the RN watched, with an air of annoyance, the whole of the national representation rise to exclude the deputy of Gironde Grégoire de Fournas from the Bourbon palace for fifteen days.
No one knows if the phrase “let him return to Africa”, launched by the elected RN in the National Assembly, this Thursday, was directly aimed at the rebellious deputy Carlos Martens Bilongo, as estimated by the opponents of the RN, or s he rather evoked the humanitarian boat Ocean Viking stranded at sea with 234 migrants, mentioned by the elected LFI. But this Saturday, the embarrassment of the activists present at the congress proves that the exit of the Frontist deputy spoils the long-awaited transfer of power.
“For the image of our party, it’s not terrible”
“If it was a provocation against a black MP, it’s pathetic. But I rather believe that he was clumsy in the words used, and if the general idea is to say that we no longer want illegal immigrants, I agree with him, ”breathes Victor, 31, came from the Southwest. “For the image of our party, it’s not terrible, but I regret the outbidding that was made by our opponents and I found the sanction very severe. For a Nazi salute, a Renaissance deputy had only had one call to order “, he adds.
“In substance, he is right to oppose the arrival of a boat of immigrants, but in form, he should not have said it like that, abounds David Treca, activist from Côte-d’Or . I don’t think it will have an impact on public opinion, but it’s true that this clumsiness hurts us a little, because it takes us back to the time of the FN, of Jean-Marie Le Pen. This is what our political adversaries have been waiting for for a long time”. Proof of the ambient malaise, the deputy Grégoire de Fournas was also absent from Congress this Saturday.
Marine Le Pen denounces the “villainies” of her opponents
The episode has something to annoy Marine Le Pen. Because since the sensational entry of 89 RN deputies into the Bourbon palace this summer, the former presidential candidate has been watching to avoid controversy and continue the “normalization” of her party. At the podium, this Saturday, the president of the RN group indirectly evokes the controversy of the last hours. “During the last decade, we have been spared little villainy by some of our unconcerned adversaries and the last few days have again given a striking glimpse of it,” she said. “It is clear that some of them will not shrink from any lie, any disloyalty, any maneuver, any shame. »
This is the strategy defended en bloc by the executives present in the spans of the meeting. “This sanction against our MP is a disgrace, and a blow to freedom of expression. The rebellious and the government are taking advantage of this affair to demonize those who oppose immigration”, thunders Gilles Pennelle, director general of the RN. “It’s a tsunami in a glass of water. The French are not fooled by this politicking coup, by this bad faith of the rebellious and the extreme center, ”insists the deputy of Moselle Laurent Jacobelli. “Jordan Bardella’s great victory is much more important than the lapping of the last few days,” he added.
At the podium, the new president pays tribute to Marine Le Pen at the end of the afternoon and evokes the Fournas affair, denouncing “the manhunt against a deputy of the Republic”. But Jordan Bardella must already face a new controversy within his political family. Steeve Briois, mayor of Hénin-Beaumont, accused him this Saturday of leading a “purge” within the movement after his exclusion (and that of the historic Bruno Bilde) from the new executive body. He denounced on BFMTV a “risk of re-radicalization” and fears to see again “disembarking madmen obsessed with identity” with the seizure of power by Bardella. A first major challenge for the new cantor of “de-demonization”.
*Jordan Bardella was, however, interim president since the 2022 presidential campaign.