A strategic tribute… Marine Le Pen went to Bayeux on Tuesday in the footsteps of General de Gaulle, who had long been fought against by his party, continuing his endeavor to claim the Gaullist heritage, which his rival Eric Zemmour also relied on.
As several presidential candidates meet in Colombey-les-deux-Eglises on the general’s grave for the 51st anniversary of his death, the candidate of the National Rally will also pay tribute to the former head of state who became the essential totem for the political class.
She considers it “urgent” to “be inspired” by De Gaulle
She must first lay a wreath in front of La Croix de Lorraine, symbol of resistance, in Courseulles-sur-mer (Calvados), before delivering a speech on the institutions at Place de Gaulle in Bayeux, where the general sits. is expressed in June 1944 after the landing and in June 1946 on the future Constitution.
Since her accession to the head of the FN in 2011, Marine Le Pen assumes a “continuity” with the general, which she even considers “urgent” to “be inspired”.
“General de Gaulle is not the property of any party” but his “main principles are now defended by the National Gathering,” said Jordan Bardella, interim president of the RN, referring to Sunday on France inter / France info / Le Monde has a common attachment to “a form of national independence”.
In Bayeux, Marine Le Pen will underline the “act of sovereignty” posed by Charles de Gaulle in 1944 vis-à-vis the United States in particular, and his desire in 1946 for a “strong president” when he draws the outlines of the Fifth Republic. “Today this balance is upset with the five-year term and a president who has become party leader,” said Philippe Olivier, close advisor to MarineLe Pen.
“Rewrite history”
While MarineLe Pen intends to revise the Constitution in depth to include the primacy of national law, Philippe Olivier affirms that it is a question of “resourcing” it on “the idea of sovereignty” and recalls the proposal of the RN of a non-renewable 7-year presidential term.
On the proportional ballot, defended by Marine Le Pen while de Gaulle introduced a majority ballot, the candidate affirms that “the political situation at the time was very different” and assures that today the general would be in favor of proportional representation .
However, the RN (ex FN) counted among its founders in 1972 former collaborators of the Vichy regime as well as the former SS Pierre Bousquet, who was its first treasurer, former supporters of French Algeria or fighters of the ‘OAS.
“To say de Gaulle is to say that we have nothing to do with either Vichy or the OAS” and “it allows us to rewrite history”, explains historian Nicolas Lebourg. The reference to de Gaulle in any case allows Marine Le Pen to continue her work of “demonization”.
She also broke with her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who wrote in his Memoirs that Marshal Pétain “did not fail in honor by signing the armistice” in 1940 and that General de Gaulle “remains a horrible source. of suffering for France ”.
In 2018, the co-founder of the FN even told how he tried in 1963 to escape Jean Bastien-Thiry, one of the perpetrators of the Petit-Clamart attack against de Gaulle.
She wants to stand out from Zemmour and Macron
Two birds with one stone, Marine Le Pen intends in Bayeux to stand out as much from Eric Zemmour, who takes his votes, as from Emmanuel Macron, by pleading for a presidency concerned with “national cohesion”, according to his entourage.
But molting can be painful. Marine Le Pen had tried to celebrate in 2020 the 80th anniversary of the appeal of June 18 on the Ile de Sein, where his trip had aroused the hostility of the inhabitants and came to an end.
“My right is General de Gaulle”, a “great reconciler”, also writes Eric Zemmour, who accuses The Republicans of having “betrayed” him but will not go to Colombey.
But his critics point out that the far-right polemicist makes history lie by claiming Gaullism while asserting, for example, that Marshal Pétain saved Jews.
“All of Zemmour’s speech is to unite the right and the far right” and therefore “to break the presupposition that de Gaulle and Pétain are two different things”, analyzes the MEP close to PS Raphaël Glucksmann.