After Éric Zemmour’s party Reconquête held its summer university, Rassemblement National (RN) stepped up to take its turn. RN’s summer university took place from the 16th to 18th of September, in Agde, in the Hérault department—a southern region where the RN is traditionally strong. This department sent 2 out of 10 RN deputies to the National Assembly during the last legislative elections in June.
The summer university is a must for political parties when they return from their summer holidays. But this is the first time since 1987 that the RN has taken part in the exercise. The meeting had the feel of something of a Congress for the national Right party, which is preparing to renew its presidency in a few weeks. Louis Aliot and Jordan Bardella, the two candidates to take over the leadership of the party from Marine Le Pen, officially launched their campaign. Both gave speeches, before giving way to the former presidential candidate for the final word.
The message transmitted by Marine Le Pen to her militants was extremely clear. She is leaving the leadership of the party to focus fully on the next presidential election in 2027. “When it will no longer be Emmanuel Macron, it will be us,” she explained in her big closing speech on Sunday, September 18th. Marine Le Pen also took advantage of her speech to introduce a new slogan: “L’alternance, c’est nous” (We are the alternative). Marine Le Pen welcomed the ‘patriotic wave’ that is sweeping across Europe—today in Sweden, “tomorrow” in Italy, and “the day after tomorrow” in the Netherlands—by which she hopes to eventually bring her party to power. She believes that the group of 89 deputies formed by the Rassemblement National in the June legislative elections constitutes a sufficiently solid base for the “great political changeover” that she hopes and prays for.
Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan, the only RN elected in a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, campaigns on the importance of local presence, especially in large urban centres. He is undoubtedly the best placed to make such a speech. Jordan Bardella, 27 years old, is betting on the training of the cadres and the necessary constant professionalisation of the party. During the various speeches that followed one another in Agde, Marine Le Pen did not hide her preference for Bardella.
The obsession shared by all the RN deputies is to appear credible, i.e., to become professional and to put an end to sterile polemics. They want to present an irreproachable face to the French, and that is why the party is careful to depict the planned duel between Louis Aliot and Jordan Bardella as a discussion of frank camaraderie rather than a cockfight. Another objective: not to be locked into an attitude of systematic obstruction in the National Assembly. A ‘firm’ but ‘constructive’ opposition, in the words of the deputy Thomas Ménagé. However, according to a European parliamentarian, there is the risk that the party will become a party like any other—so respectable that its voice no longer carries far enough.
Rassemblement National members will vote for their new president via the internet from September 30th to November 3rd. The results will be announced on November 5th at the 18th Congress in Paris.
