The French Rassemblement National (RN) officially launched its European election campaign at a major rally in Marseille on Sunday, March 3rd. The message from the party’s president and head of list Jordan Bardella was clear: focus the attacks on President Emmanuel Macron.
The party claimed 8,000 participants for its official launch meeting—the first in a series of ten events leading up to the European elections on June 9th.
Whereas a few years ago, the RN advocated a ‘Frexit’—leaving the European Union—the official message of the main party of the French national Right has changed: it is no longer a question of leaving, but of changing the rules from within. Reconquête, the RN’s rival party led by Eric Zemmour, with Marion Maréchal as its lead candidate in the elections, is not advocating leaving the European Union either. In France, the ‘Frexit’ position is currently only defended by two minority groups, François Asselineau’s Union Populaire Républicaine (UPR) and Florian Philippot’s Les Patriotes movement—the latter the brainchild of a former member of the RN and adviser to Marine Le Pen.
The reason put forward by Jordan Bardella for remaining in the EU, as explained in his Sunday speech, is that “You don’t leave the table when you’re winning the game.” The 28-year-old RN president wants his party to be part of a general trend in favour of national Right parties in Europe, especially as some of them have come to power, as in Sweden and the Netherlands. In this context, it would be pointless—and complicated—to leave the Union. The strategy from now on is to use the growing electoral weight to change the Union in several ways. The message would be to showcase a conquering France, capable of using its influence to achieve its ends, in the words of the campaign slogan: “France is coming back, Europe is reviving.” (La France revient, l’Europe revit.)
This course seems to suit the future voters who are preparing to vote for the RN on June 9th, and who told France Info that no one today is prepared to give up on the euro or leave the EU, and that the RN’s line is perceived more as common sense and pragmatism than opportunism or renunciation. “This change of tone has been able to free up words and attract people. Marine can broaden her base, because it’s a bit scary to be against the European Union,” explained one of the participants at the Marseille meeting.
The Rassemblement National’s attacks were mainly aimed at the President of the Republic. For the RN, the European elections are above all a springboard for 2027, and the focus is on attacking the disastrous record of “seven years of Macronism.” Emmanuel Macron has been portrayed as the “great eraser”—the man who is erasing France from history and never stops pushing the French into disunity. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has also been the target of sustained attacks. What von der Leyen and Macron have in common is that they are both seen as supporters of immigration that is not only uncontrolled but encouraged. “To put it plainly, in Macron’s Europe, immigration is not the problem, it’s the project,” said Jordan Bardella, later highlighting his 3rd on the list, Fabrice Leggeri, former head of the European border protection agency Frontex, who rallied to the RN’s cause a few weeks ago.
In addition to immigration, agriculture was obviously the other main focus of Jordan Bardella’s speech in Marseille: “There can be no rurality without farmers, and no sovereignty without agriculture,” he reminded the audience as the Salon International de l’Agriculture came to a close in Paris, where Bardella had been able to gauge his popularity in farming circles a few days earlier.
The Marseilles meeting was also an opportunity to stage the unity between the historic figure of Marine Le Pen and the current president, Jordan Bardella, despite the fact that there had been differences of opinion in the preceding days in technical discussions on the question of setting minimum prices in the agricultural sector.
A poll of voting intentions put the Rassemblement National at around 30% for the June 9th election, which explains the jubilant atmosphere that reigned in the ranks of activists in Marseille. However, when it comes to the European balance, things are still uncertain, as Bardella reminded journalists on Thursday, February 29th in a more restricted setting: “The possibilities range from no group to a super-group,” he explained, referring to the competition between the Identity and Democracy group and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, where the Reconquête party would sit if it were to win seats.
