Presidential election in France: Le Pen takes off, but someone sulks

“Is Marine Le Pen invincible?” asks the Sunday paper La Tribune du Dimanche. Not everyone in France thinks that. But according to all election polls, the Rassemblement National (RN) presidential candidate has had a clear lead in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron for weeks. According to pollsters, she could get 33 to 36 percent of the vote in the first round. And so far there is no opponent in sight who would be able to defeat her in the runoff.

“Marine Présidente, Marine Présidente!” her supporters shout, confident of victory, during her speech with which she starts the election campaign in her northern French electoral stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont. The fact that she was sentenced to one year in prison by the Court of Appeal in July for embezzling funds from the EU Parliament did not in any way affect her popularity.

The “social” accents of their program are particularly well received. Le Pen promises that she will work to maintain purchasing power and facilitate access to social housing. As in other areas, it wants to introduce a “national preference”, which would be unconstitutional in France, but for it is a “natural right and just”. She also promises to lower the retirement age back to 62.

Their continued popularity is probably explained less by their election promises than by the dissatisfaction of entire sections of the population, especially in rural France. Le Pen also claims that the right-wing populists are the only political force that has not been in power in recent decades and therefore cannot be held responsible for the misery.

Given such a favorable starting position, the right-wing populist, who is running in the presidential election for the fourth time, would actually not have to put in much effort in the election campaign. She forgoes the originally planned tour of the street market on Sunday and thus also foregoes the scenes with “Antifa” demonstrators that were expected there.

There were no distracting background noises when performing in front of their home audience. Only one person sulks in the podium of party celebrities: RN chairman Jordan Bardella has not digested the fact that it is not he who will be running, but his boss.

Not only did she publicly confirm her candidacy on the day the verdict was announced on July 7th, without informing him beforehand. She has also publicly distanced herself from Bardella's liberal economic positions and fired his closest adviser. Le Pen blames him for the tensions that have become visible at the RN leadership in recent weeks.

Officially, she still refers to Bardella as her prime minister after her election as head of state in May 2027. There is no longer any mention of the “Binom”, a duo of equal partners, which was announced months ago. Bardella is moved back to the second tier.

The management of Marine Le Pen's campaign - as was the case during the time of Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National - is taken over by her closest confidants from the family circle: her sister Marie-Caroline and her husband, the EU MP Philippe Olivier, as well as her daughter Nolwenn, who, at the age of 27, becomes head of communications for the election campaign. She was Bardella's friend until he ditched her for a Bourbon princess.

Another niece of Marine Le Pen is now playing an important role in the organization again, and inevitably at the expense of Bardella: Marine Maréchal-Le Pen, who supported the right-wing radical competitor Éric Zemmour in 2022, has returned remorsefully to her aunt and is no longer leaving her side.