The bottom versus the top, the workers versus the elites, the nation versus globalization… Marine Le Pen released the populist handbook on Thursday at her first campaign rally in the recent French presidential election campaign. The far-right candidate defined the elections, in which she faces centrist Emmanuel Macron, as a duel between the “people”, whose representation is arrogant, and the “caste” and “oligarchy” who, according to her, embody the current republic President.
“We must block the way of this caste that rules us with arrogance, this power of a few for the benefit of a few, this power of the compadreo, in which co-optation and nepotism reign,” Le Pen called out to thousands of people at a pavilion in the exhibition park Outskirts of Avignon in southern France. “The April 24 appointment pits the popular bloc against the elite bloc,” he continued. And he added: “In short, the people against the oligarchy.”
Le Pen wants to deny the polls that all show Macron the winner in the second round in 10 days. The right-wing extremist candidate is in an unusual situation in this election campaign. For the first time, all the spotlight is on her and not her ultra-competitor, talk show host Éric Zemmour, who was eliminated in the first round. Journalists, commentators and political rivals dissect his program – programs count in France – and point out its inconsistencies. Poll by poll, the President is slightly increasing his lead.
“To the abstentions, I say, ‘Come and vote, if the people vote, the people win,'” Le Pen said In order to raise the country, our only party is France, our only motor, the French, and our only aim, the nation. “.
The atmosphere in the Palacio de Congresos was electric. The sea of flags. La Marseillesa a cappella and with a mere scream. The heat, the sweat. Le Pen’s supporters chant like in a stadium “We will win” and “Navy President”. The enthusiasm of men and women, young and old, of all ages, who painted a pretty fine picture of Le Pen’s voter sociology.
“We’re fed up with Macron,” said Amandine Pommier, 32, a medical assistant from Ardèche, 130 kilometers north of Avignon. From there she came to Le Pen with her mother, Brigitte Betrand, 66. Pommier complained that she had been forced against her will to be vaccinated against Covid in order to continue working. She blamed the president for police’s heavy-handed crackdown on the yellow vest demonstrations she attended. Bertrand complained that he had just retired and that his pension was €1,184 net. “Macron despises people like us, the middle class, the workers,” said the daughter. “The bosses are fine.” Both were convinced of the victory of the “navy”, as they all call it.
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The Lepenist base are people with lower incomes and fewer diplomas, small clerks and workers, the inhabitants of France in the provincial towns who feel that the France that is doing well looks down on them, despises them. They were all at the Palais des Congrès in Avignon, a city where Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a populist left candidate, received the most votes in the first round. The city is located in the department of Vaucluse, fief of the National Rally, Le Pen’s party.
Conquest of Mélenchon’s voices
In all of France, Mélenchon was third last Sunday, just behind Le Pen. That is why the more than seven million Melenchonist voters are the most valuable object of desire in France today. They and the teetotalers – if someone manages to mobilize them – will decide the winner within ten days.
Macron and Le Pen are courting these voters. Macron points out that Le Pen is on the extreme right, a label she rejects. He warns that he is not fit to govern France. And it offers its most progressive profile after tilting right to center.
Le Pen is trying to forget his ideological identity, the extreme right. At the rally, he sued immigration, but it wasn’t the issue that most concerned the public. Applause erupted as he brandished populist and social rhetoric: cut VAT on fuel and scrap it for 100 basic products, 10% wage increase, scrap income tax for under-30s… No one knows how she’ll fund these measures, but the candidate believes that the message can work. And in rallies it works.
There is something of a caricature about it, but if a rally is a more or less accurate reflection of a country, then Le Pen’s France is that of those who don’t speak as they do in Paris, of men who wear tattoos and earrings, of young people with precarious Jobs or women who work in hospitals or supermarkets and have a hard time making ends meet. And that France was well represented in Avignon, and they applauded Le Pen because, despite being the wealthy heir to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s political clan, she knew how to talk to them. A Macron rally is a different universe: gentlemen in ties, some university students, retirees and affluent middle classes, provincial businessmen or big-city bourgeois living connected to the global world.
“Emmanuel Macron’s world vision promotes deregulation and enslaves people under economic and accounting logic, under the laws of the market and the king of money,” said the candidate. “The national vision I espouse defends the nation as a shelter that posits that the economy is at the service of the people and the nation, and not the other way around: man is not just an economic agent, but a subject, of belonging, of transmission”.
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