RN congress, continued: Le Pen enters the race as front-runner, now others must answer on substance

Six months before the presidential election, Marine Le Pen is opening her campaign in Orléans this Sunday. A candidate for the fourth time, she is due, according to AFP, to deliver at 3:30 p.m., at the Co'Met, a 10,000-seat venue, the closing speech of the Rassemblement national congress, built around a word that has become her slogan: "renaissance". She says she wants to "bring a little optimism" to a country in crisis. This follow-up to our articles on the congress focuses on what changes today: the RN no longer speaks as an opposition party, but as a party preparing to govern.

The facts

The day before, Jordan Bardella was re-elected unopposed as party president with 98.98% of the vote, Public Sénat reports. AFP adds that he is slated for Matignon if Marine Le Pen wins. In his speech, he warned that the difficulties of exercising power would not justify "any form of renunciation" of the promises made to voters.

The context is tense. Again according to AFP, around 3,000 police officers and gendarmes are securing the event, and gatherings remain banned across much of the Orléans area this Sunday. On Saturday, the opponents' demonstration passed off calmly, with between 13,000 and 26,000 people depending on the source. Inside the hall, however, a Mediapart team was booed by activists and then briefly escorted out by the party's security service, as franceinfo reported.

Marine Le Pen starts from a position of strength. Polls give her up to 38% of first-round voting intentions, AFP notes. Le Journal du dimanche mentions an Ifop-Fiducial survey conducted after the riots of 17 October that also gives her a widened lead in the second round against all her rivals.

A judicial cloud remains. As Public Sénat detailed, the appeal court sentenced her on 7 July, in the European parliamentary assistants case, to 45 months of ineligibility, 30 of them suspended, without immediate enforcement, which allows her to run. She has announced an appeal to the Cour de cassation, which has indicated it could rule by early April 2027. It is the Conseil constitutionnel that will rule, when the time comes, on the validity of candidacies.

The positions at stake

The RN claims a strategy of calm. According to the JDD, Marine Le Pen has adopted the posture of a head of state since the riots: a call for calm and "republican restraint", a refusal to join the calls for a state of emergency made by other figures on the right and centre, and an instruction to her MPs to avoid demagogic amendments. She believes, according to AFP, that "the battle over the diagnosis is won" and does not intend to harden her tone. Her supporters see this as proof of newfound maturity and of an ability to win support beyond their own electorate.

Her opponents dispute this narrative. On the left, several thousand demonstrators made a point on Saturday, according to Public Sénat, of saying they refuse to "leave Orléans" to the far right. The treatment of the Mediapart team also fuels doubts about the RN's relationship with the independent press. Jordan Bardella, for his part, accuses La France insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon of being ready to "reject the result of the ballot box", AFP notes, which shows that polarisation remains at the heart of the party's strategy.

Analysis

What Marine Le Pen says must be taken seriously. The diagnosis she claims, that of a country that feels downgraded, of a cost of living weighing on households and of a state struggling to guarantee order, is shared by a large share of the French. The two weekends of mobilisation against the cost of living have been a reminder of that. Responding to her with indignation alone would be a mistake.

But a shared diagnosis is not a solution. The decisive question is that of the answers. On social protection, on funding public services, on France's place in Europe, the RN's programme will have to be examined line by line, figures in hand, like that of any other candidate. Sovereignty, dear to the Gaullist tradition, is not the same as withdrawal: France carries more weight when it leads its European partners than when it distances itself from them.

The presidential posture also carries a requirement. Respecting institutions means respecting the courts, whatever their final decision, and respecting all journalists, including those who are uncomfortable. A party preparing to govern will be judged on its ability to guarantee these freedoms to those who do not think as it does.

Finally, the RN's lead says a great deal about the weakness of its competitors. The left, the republican right and the centre have six months to offer something other than a barrier: a credible project of social justice, of restoring public finances without sacrificing public services, and of state authority without brutality.

Conclusion

The Orléans speech will show what "renaissance" Marine Le Pen is proposing. It is up to the other candidates to say which one they stand for. One question should guide the campaign: who will be able to provide concrete answers to the cost of living and the sense of abandonment, while preserving what makes the Republic, the rule of law, press freedom and national cohesion?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.