She watched her opponents scatter in the hemicycle with a detached air. Marine Le Pen stayed away from the battle between the majority and the elected representatives of Nupes on pension reform. Calm, arms crossed, with a slight smile, the former president of the National Rally imagined perhaps already reaping the fruits of these chaotic exchanges. While the government bill should end its difficult journey in Parliament this week, a fear is shared by the majority and the elected opposition: to see the RN emerge victorious from the sequence. A stage targeted by the party in its strategy of conquest of power.
Since the opening of the debates, the National Rally has been rather timid in the National Assembly, as in the media, to oppose the government bill. Its 88 elected officials only tabled two hundred amendments (twice less than the presidential party) to try to modify the text, far from the thousands defended by Nupes. Despite this erasure in the hemicycle, Marine Le Pen drank whey last Thursday, during an interview on France Inter.
“Even if this pension reform is passed – which I really do not want and which I am not convinced – it will be defeated when I am elected”, she said. The ex-boss of the RN is already planning for the 2027 presidential election, with one more argument in her bag. “It’s an extremely divisive subject. A large majority of French people are against the reform. Retiring at 64 will be a strong argument for the future, especially for the battle of 2027, ”confirms Thomas Ménagé, RN deputy for Loiret.
“Marine Le Pen plays the good mother”
A prospect that despairs several elected representatives of the majority. “We are all wondering how to make it not Le Pen the next time around. Our democracy is sick! “, chokes a Macronist deputy, annoyed by the holding of the debates in the Assembly. “We are on a slippery slope, and each year, the RN cringes a little more. But what speeds it up? We who want to save the pay-as-you-go system or the Nupes guys who treat us like monsters and bastards in the hemicycle? »
The members of the presidential majority of course prefer to target the parliamentary obstruction of La France insoumise and the heated debates of the two weeks of examination, rather than the broad opposition of the French to the text. “Every day, we felt like we were touching the bottom of the pool, but in fact no, we were going even further, sighs an elected MoDem. It’s blessed bread for Marine Le Pen, who during this time, garnered public opinion by playing the good mother…”
“The popular categories will not forget”
This pursuit of the RN’s “normalization” strategy, sometimes pushed to the point of caricature, seems to have paid off, According to several polls. Marine Le Pen would be the political personality best embodying the opposition to the reform, according to an Ifop survey published at the end of February. And this, despite the absence of the RN in the demonstrations and the ideological wanderings of the party on retirement at 60 in recent years. “They are not opponents, they did nothing in the Assembly, they did not demonstrate, they oppose the blocking of the country, annoys Antoine Léaument, LFI deputy for Essonne. We are the only ones to embody anger in the country. The only thing that benefits the RN is the attitude of the macronists, who highlight, once again, their devil of comfort. »
The prospect of a “forced passage” in the National Assembly, this Thursday, through a 49.3, is all the more feared by parliamentarians. “The pension reform is the ultimate tension. If we add a 49.3, it will leave a very strong trace…”, confirms an elected Horizons, close to Edouard Philippe. “The strategic choices of the government, the brothel of the Nupes, all of this benefits Marine Le Pen. The popular categories will not forget this reform if it is adopted. And this anger will profit ultimately at the National Rally, ”adds a Les Républicains deputy opposed to the text. A Renaissance elected official, on the front line of the text, adds, weary: “We are on the edge of the abyss, and everyone takes the responsibility, but in the end, if Marine Le Pen wins, we will only have our eyes to cry…”
