Suddenly the favorite for the presidency – How Marine Le Pen benefits from the pension protest

Which party in France will benefit most from the pension reform debate that has kept France in suspense for weeks and eclipsed all other issues – even the war in Ukraine? It is not the leftist union of Nupès that triumphs in the demos, nor the Renaissance Macron movement that upholds the principle of order.

“The big winner of the debate”, as the weekly “Marianne” notes, is Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN). According to a survey, 35 percent of the French do best in the harsh conflict. The Left Front only gets 27 percent, the Macron camp 26 percent.

The result may surprise you. Le Pen deliberately stays out of the speech battles in the National Assembly; Instead of ranting and polemicizing as usual, she solemnly follows the procedures of the Fifth Republic: first she puts forward a vote of no confidence in the government of President Emmanuel Macron, then she calls for a referendum on the retirement age.

Le Pen does not participate in the pension demos, although she rejects, like the left, the retirement age of 64. Republican and serious, she mimics Italian sister Giorgia Meloni; and very different from the shirt-sleeved and very loud left, in the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the National Assembly, she observes French etiquette: the women in her parliamentary group dress elegantly at her request, the gentlemen s’il vous flat with tires.

Admittedly, the new ways of the otherwise crass “fascists” seem a bit artificial. The Lepenists are “cowardly and immoral”, laments the Paris left-wing newspaper Liberation, but must admit in the same breath: “This attitude could pay off at the ballot box.”

Clear destination: Élysée Palace

And even stronger than before. In the April 2022 presidential election, Le Pen missed the Elysée Palace for the third time in a row; However, in the parliamentary elections that followed in June, her party RN made big gains, multiplying the number of seats in the National Assembly from eight to 89.

The current pension debate reinforces this trend. Macron and his reform are met with rejection and leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not seen as an alternative. Unlike Le Pen, many of her constituents are extremely angry about the reform.

They often worked as labourers, craftsmen and tradesmen and often started their careers very early – sometimes before they reached the age of majority – and without any training; as a result, they now feel extra disadvantaged by the increase in the retirement age to 64 years. And lean even more towards Le Pen than before.

“The pension debate can only strengthen the dynamics of the RN,” estimates political scientist Bruno Palier. According to him, even the middle class no longer has any qualms about appealing to the right-wing populist. Macron, on the other hand, gambled away the credit of the majority of the population. Since the start of the pension debate, popularity has fallen below 30 percent.

In a new poll for the 2027 presidential election, Le Pen is far ahead of all opponents; she gets 31 percent for the first ballot and 55 percent for the second round. Behind her is also Macron’s former prime minister, Edouard Philippe, France’s most popular politician to date. (aargauerzeitung.ch)