‘Le Pen relishes kingmaker role, holding Barnier’s fate in her hands’

Hold me back or you’ll see! Despite being hampered by a trial for charges of embezzling EU Parliament funds in a fake jobs scheme – a case that could render her banned from running for public office – far-right leader Marine Le Pen put herself back at the center of the political game on Monday, November 25, amid the unfolding budget tragedy. She was the first to meet with officials to voice her grievances and the first to publicly make her demands on the steps of the prime minister’s office. Le Pen relishes her role as kingmaker, holding the fate of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in her hands.

The situation is not straightforward, as the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) alone cannot overthrow the government. It does not have enough votes in the Assemblée Nationale to do so.

Only the combined votes of the left and the far right on a motion of no confidence introduced by either side would do. This is what the prime minister calls “the coalition of opposites.” And yet, everything revolves around Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter, her demands and her calculations, as if the other political players had become subordinate figures. Was this inevitable?

Democratic mystification

If we reason in terms of party and not coalitions, the RN is the largest force in the Assemblée Nationale. It has 124 seats, far ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s party (94) and the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI, 71). Its appeal remains undiminished despite the far-right party’s poor campaign in the legislative elections last summer and despite the seriousness of the facts revealed in the trial in which Le Pen is risking a great deal. The proportion of voters who say they agree with the party’s ideas is rising (39%), the proportion who perceive it as a danger to democracy is falling (38%) and the proportion who anticipate its forthcoming accession to power has reached 68%, according to the Verian Institute’s annual barometer, published on November 25 by The World.

This data lends credence to the idea that, in a country that is financially weakened, politically divided and dominated by a deafening sense of mistrust, the RN continues to gain traction by focusing on the twin issues of households’ budgets and immigration. It also benefits from its claim of being the only party that hasn’t yet held power.

The RN’s progression is certainly not new. Since 2012, when former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to attract Le Pen voters failed, a dynamic has been at work, as it has in many Western democracies. However, since 2022, the momentum has accelerated within a tripartite system that exposes the weakness of its opponents. After the legislative campaign ended, the so-called republican front shattered. No alliance emerged from the joint effort to prevent the RN from winning and Jordan Bardella from becoming prime minister. Worse still, the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale fostered further mistrust and political posturing.

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