They almost didn’t scream. While Elisabeth Borne unrolled her general policy statement, at the podium, Wednesday, July 6, most of the 89 deputies of the National Rally (RN) remained stoic, accentuating the contrast with the boos emanating from the ranks of La France insoumise (LFI ) and the applause of the presidential coalition. The objective of the far-right party, in the process of being institutionalized, was to offer as the first image in the Hemicycle that of a serious and disciplined group. And to embody this “constructive opposition”, with vague outlines, which barely allows itself a few sarcasms and sneers.
“It’s not a decibel contest, the French don’t care who shouted the most at Ms. Borne,” sweeps Jean-Philippe Tanguy, number two in the group. When the Prime Minister mentioned the pension reform, the RN deputies let the left protest loudly. The announcement of the deconjugalization of the allowance for disabled adults (AAH) caused an “ola” of satisfaction. ” It’s us ! “, claimed Sébastien Chenu. The tribute to the police, the gendarmes and the soldiers tore their applause. Only the mention of caregivers set off their whistles against the suspension of staff for non-vaccination, albeit quickly drowned out by loud “hypocrites!” chanted by the “rebellious”.
The signs of opposition were elsewhere. When Aurore Bergé, president of the Renaissance group, took the floor, Marine Le Pen left the Hemicycle with almost all of her delegation. With, as a setback, that the populist leader, once back, began her speech when half of her group had not found their seats. “We do not wish to be an opposition of obstruction but of proposal”, she argued from the podium. Before multiplying, in a virulent tone, criticism of the head of state.
“A political provocation”
“He stages himself as the savior of the world as if the exercise of power had to be reduced to a Netflix trailer,” she attacked, castigating “an irremediably narcissistic power”. The legislative elections are interpreted, for her, as “a great political moment” of rebalancing the regime, which she personifies against Emmanuel Macron. “It’s a return of politics that jumps out at him,” she scratched. The mischievous people answered his call to come and get him, and with the oars offered by democracy, put him in his place. What did the people say? “We want to force you not to govern alone.” »
The nationalist leader described the confirmation of Elisabeth Borne at Matignon as “a political provocation”. Then targeted one by one the ministers seated in the front rows, referring the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to the fiasco of the Stade de France and the government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, to his supposed lack of “sincerity”, before to attack the legitimacy of the Minister of National Education, decried as “the wokist Pap Ndiaye”.
She once again returned to her usual register when she depicted a “country falling apart”: “an endemic violence that encysts everywhere”, “a migratory submersion that power no longer even tries to curb” , “an inflation caused by five years of calamitous management”… “It is time to put France in order”, she launched, updating one of her campaign slogans. Without mentioning the war waged by Russia at the gates of Europe, she called for “recovering our sovereignty by preserving a European Union trapped in an imperial drift, which constitutes the negation of the rights of peoples and peoples” .
But, between words and deeds, Marine Le Pen has introduced a vague dissonance. “We have no confidence in your government!” “, she launched. The RN deputies nevertheless intend to abstain on the motion of no confidence tabled by the Nupes. “People want us to give Ms. Borne a chance, we’re not going to crash everything,” says Thomas Ménagé, MP for Loiret and spokesperson for the group. In an oxymoronic formula, Marine Le Pen asserted herself as a “government opposition force”, a hybrid positioning that would lead to alternation.
“We are not fooled”
The leader of the RN is in fact keeping all the options. His group plans to vote in favor of several measures in the Purchasing Power Bill, which will be presented on Thursday. “It’s not a gift, it’s a right, camp Jean-Philippe Tanguy. We vote for common sense measures, but we are not fooled. Among them, the indexation of retirement pensions to inflation, the AAH, the extension of the fuel discount, the freezing of the price of gas…, but not the “Macron bonus”.
In the “cemetery”, the platform reserved for former parliamentarians, the former frontist leader Bruno Gollnisch dozed off. “To combine a very firm opposition without breaking the bank, he confides then, that can lead the RN to the steps of power … and is well worth the risk of appearing not pugnacious enough. A risk that resonates with Lepenist voters. “RN deputies are drowning in a glass of parliamentary water. They prefer to go to the Assembly in tie, but they will create a disconnect between their electorate and them, deplores Patrice Charles, ex-elected municipal RN. They were not elected to be polite. Just as Jean-Marie Le Pen said, when voting for the Chirac government’s no-confidence motion in 1986: “Our voters did not elect us to abstain.” A now distant era.
