The summers of the National Assembly (RN) seem like old records that have been broken. “It’s always the sameMarine Le Pen regrets. We leave in August, then the commentators say that we are no longer here, that we are not working…” 2017, 2022, 2024. “It is true that it is always the same movie: [après chaque grande élection] We always say that we need to structure ourselves, that we need to become more professional.”breathes Louis Aliot, vice-president of the far-right party.
The setting for the start of the school year was certainly less festive (Agde, in Hérault, in 2022) or rural (Beaucaire, in Gard, in 2023) than in previous years: the 156 parliamentarians (national and European) were invited to the premises of the National Assembly for an austere working seminar, on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 September, concluded by a national council of the movement. A succession of thematic conferences to remind elected officials of the main programmatic lines of their party and to increase satisfaction with the unprecedented place occupied by the RN in the political space.
Two months after a legislative campaign plagued by dozens of candidates who were racist, anti-Semitic or incapable of guaranteeing a debate, the dismissal of “bad apples” was drowned out by a waltz of renewals at the head of the departmental federations. During a speech at the beginning of July, RN president Jordan Bardella promised a “examination of conscience”after the fiasco of his “Matignon plan”.
“We must be irreproachable”
The main lessons learned publicly consist mainly of warning their representatives against media accused of fueling a “little music” different from the one composed by the party. “Don’t be carried away by always contradictory comments”repeated Marine Le Pen. “This autumn you will read a lot of nonsense. I can only encourage you not to give in to these little manipulations.[ulations] who once again seek to depress you, depress our supporters, depress our voters”completed Jordan Bardella, who arrived with a “anthology” that the headlines made the mistake of evoking dissent within a party forced to carry out a behind-the-scenes purge of its most radical elements.
“Unlike our adversaries, we will not be granted any indulgence, tolerance or margin for error. We must therefore be irreproachable.”“The RN president warned in a room marked by the absence of the MP Christine Engrand (Pas-de-Calais), immobilized a few days earlier for having taken money from her parliamentary envelope to finance personal expenses and driving with an invalid license since 2009. Jordan Bardella confirmed that she would be summoned by the party’s conflicts commission.
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