France: Le Pen seeks to leverage unrest in presidential campaign kick-off

We're going to get some context and analysis now with Andrew Smith from Queen Mary University of London. Andrew, a pleasure to have you with us on the programme. I'd like to first get your initial reaction, your thoughts to that speech. What's at the heart of this campaign message? I think one thing's for sure, it's certainly not policy at the heart of this campaign speech. Marine Le Pen spoke very strongly about the idea of an encounter with history and focus on the idea that France is right now in a moment, in a time of transition. Now, of course, it's that Gramsci quote that everyone mistranslates about now is the time of monsters or morbid symptoms. Actually, I think if we look to the idea of what are historical references? What are you talking about? What are you invoking with this idea? Well, it's right there from the start, a Renaissance Francais, a French Renaissance. This is about an idea of celebrating You know, from the 15th century right up to the 18th century, an idea of the Enlightenment, a time of French rebirth. But I think it's important to think about why that's being cited as well. This is a France which can be cited as a civilizational inheritance. It's a view of France which talks about it in civilizational terms, not as something which is a political achievement, but one which names its historical references, its heroes, Joan of Arc rather than General de Gaulle. This is an important element because it focuses on these abstract figures who are Catholic, who are religious, who are tied into an idea of France, which is really, I think, quite, quite importantly, national in that emphasis. So that's a really important point. Admittedly, I will say she talked a lot about the Enlightenment, didn't hear much about the war of religions right up until she started on a sort of anti-Islam tirade, talking about, you know, no-go areas, about different styles of law and all these different things. So there was a lot there, I think, in those historical references, which give us some clues to that civilizational focus, to an idea of French for the French, national preference, but also these ideas about opposition to Islam, opposition to political revolution and radicalism, the idea of the far left, as she would cite. And looking at that type of referent, I think, entails a lot about the ideas of the speech. Yeah, so really a lot of emphasis on the identity and the idea of France more than a policy. Now, we saw Le Pen there addressing a very enthusiastic crowd. And we've, of course, been seeing some unrest with protests here in France, giving way to, you know, analyses that these events have given Le Pen a slight boost in the polls. But how would you really explain the fact that she's still running strong, even despite the scandal she's been embroiled in? Well, you know, in 1968, the phrase was beauty is in the street. And rather long and strange tirades about the concept of beauty, followed by some reflections on politeness. Marine Le Pen really seemed to say that beauty is no longer in the street, it now holds the baton. The idea is very much that she is campaigning again on public order. Jordan Bardella, speaking before her, started his speech with a low ball, kind of rallying up the crowd with a let's hear it for the cops. There is, I think, there an emphasis on this idea of public order, security, on clamping down on these ideas. And that really is something which I think the far right is benefiting from. The idea that they oppose disorder in the streets, that they oppose political radicalism, but also allows them, because of how dysfunctional the policing practice was last week, it allows them to point to the current state, the Macronist government, and say, well, they failed to deal with things. And so it allows them to present themselves as a bulwark against what they see as the far left and chaotic elements, as they called it, I think the phrase was civilian barbarians during her speech, but also against the current regime, which she sees Macron's government as being something which is ineffective and allows her to play the opponent in all of these trends. Now, again, this is part of what that idea is getting behind. Jordan Bardella spoke to what he called the silent majority of France's youth. That was what he was trying to address in his speech. This really is about trying to present themselves as very different from those that took to the streets, but instead calling for a France of order, a France of security. That's the France they're trying to project. Not one really of free thinking, free speech and all the rest of it, but one of control, politeness, one of limits, one of borders, and one of very heavy policing and very little in the way of that type of riotous assembly, you might say, the creatively unexpected ideas that would come from a more liberal political scene. Andrew, speaking of Jordan Bardella, you know, he was re-elected yesterday to lead the party. So my previous question to you applies here as well, Because how do you explain such a result, especially given that it comes just weeks after accusations of anti-Semitism? It was extraordinary, wasn't it? No real surprise in the election, it has to be said. He had some North Korean numbers in the poll booth. I think it was over 98 percent, 98.98 percent or something. He was elected by, of course, he stood unopposed. But this, I think, is really important. The National Rally has continuously managed to shrug off this idea of its scandals. You have Marine Le Pen standing there, of course, convicted for running a system of embezzlement, you know, convicted in French courts and standing there calling for law and order. We have Jordan Bardella calling for the unity of the public body, despite these allegations. These very clear and quite clearly proven allegations, it would seem, by these media sources of him expressing very strongly anti-Semitic views. Now, this is a kind of, you know, contradiction, but it's why we have these speeches which emphasise an appeal to emotion, an appeal which says, actually, don't worry about how we'll do it. Don't worry about the economy. We'll fix it. How? Not sure. Don't worry about the pension reform. We'll repeal that. Won't that cost more money? Don't worry. No problem. It appeals to emotion. That idea of a France of civilisation, a France of centuries, a France of history, that kind of thing overrides any discussion of policy, especially during a time when political tension is high. And so their appeal is based very much on a return to order, a return to a pride in France, but not really any great detail on how they'll achieve those things. Now, Le Pen has spent years trying to make the National Rally more acceptable to a wider electorate. To what extent has the strategy changed the party's image and how much of its original political identity then remains the idea of diabolisation, this phrase is used the detoxification is a communication strategy rather than an analysis and it hasn't detoxified it's changed the way it presents itself we saw in the elections to their national executive committee some reshuffling because of the problems that they had around the um the the black sheep or bad apples amongst the councillors they tried to elect last time in 2024 in municipal elections. We've seen all types of scandals which have struck and really the idea is trying to increasingly reshuffle some of these people to push out those who've allowed those difficulties allowed those challenges to be seen beneath the mask and actually to try and glide above it to present themselves as a force of something else. But I think one of the really important things if you look at the you know the terrorist murder which occurred uh the the attack which occurred just this week in Trappes and i think this really important thing is that words have consequences raising the political kind of uh temperature to talk about race to talk about ideas of civilizational inheritance bringing out these ideas of kind of clashes of civilization and all of that old nonsense is what really creates these type of violent incidents and And, you know, really, I think there needs to be more responsibility and how that language of Republican solidarity is used in a meaningful sense to unite rather than to divide. And hers is an image, I think, which tells us more about division than about unity. Now, Le Pen is leading in the polls since some time now. Do you see the picture changing anytime soon, especially before April? It's really challenging because we do have a long time to run politics. If we were talking about this two maybe three weeks ago after the the anti-semitism allegations i've said wow that seems to have really damaged um Bardella's brand but then of course after the you know the white protest but really the serious disorder which followed in the clashes with police of course what followed was this real emphasis on an idea of security and order and so that very quickly brushed over and i think that's one of the things we have to look to the more there's this type of disorder the more we see the kind of these failures and policing the more the assembly gets tied up in political blame games the more the national rally is able to bang the drum of security and order the more they're able to kind of really rally people towards a France which wears you know a helmet and carries a baton a France which looks like that image of really something which is security focused in that idea so I think unless political opponents are able to present a viable, positive political vision of the future, they will continue to be outboxed by these very simple emotional appeals, which really allow the national rally to criticise everyone, to offer little, but to appeal to those emotions of calm, order and pride in France. That's the challenge, I think, for the political opponents that Marine Le Pen will face. And Andrew, just looking ahead, we've talked about Jordan Bardella, we've talked about Marine Le Pen, I think we have to talk about the relationship between the two because it's not always been smooth sailing. How does this relationship, do you think, shape the party's strategy, the agenda going forward? Yeah, well, I mean, we shouldn't run, we shouldn't kind of write off the divisions that there are within the national rally. Of course, Jordan Bardella was allowed to speak today. Marine Le Pen, Marie-Charlotte Le Pen, was not allowed to speak. You still saw her sitting there uh in the audience but of course in 2022 she jumped ship and still being punished for that Bardella is still part of the fray still seen as the prime minister to Marine Le Pen's uh president uh hopeful um but he hasn't managed to impose himself on the National Executive Council you don't get many kind of uh Bardellaites Bardellaists in opposed to the kind of the Marinists that you see in terms of supporters of Le Pen within the National Executive Committee so she still has a strong hold on the structures of the party but Bardella has his supporters and he has people who see him really a more policy focused maybe kind of sensitive figure than somebody like Le Pen and Le Pen's speech today we saw of course the lack of policy stumbles that happened within it the kind of odd diversions into discussing beauty and politeness this isn't the kind of stuff that really inspires but it is the kind of stuff that is sort of good enough perhaps Bardella's speech was more focused, it said more perhaps to his audience. It's going to be a difficult moment, I think, in terms of seeing how that relationship will move forward. Both will, I think, be willing to put it aside for the next six months at the very least, but perhaps something to watch in future, because certainly those rivalries will only intensify the closer the national rally gets to the corridors of power. Indeed. Now, polling just behind Marine Le Pen is the far left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon with his France Unbound party. Where do you think his party currently stands, especially given the context of the recent unrest here in France? Well, they are polling, excuse me, according to many polling companies, they are currently polling second in the first round race, which might well put them into the second round. We've got different companies looking between 15 and 20 percent depending on the types of models and projections and scenarios they put forward. The far left under La France Insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon have essentially been targeted by the current government as being strongly associated with disorder. They're being blamed for a lot of the disorder in the last few weeks and that is seeing kind of really them being hit with the kind of the full force of the assemblies and probrium and their kind of disdain is people moving against and blaming them for these riots and there are traps laid of course we heard you know the Emmanuel Macron say he wanted to to rally the political parties to disavow the violence and endorse the government and the security forces that's really a trap for people like La France Insoumise because they don't want to line up beside the Macronists they don't want to line up and say the people are wrong against the state. So it is a real challenge. They do have a lot of support. They are a popular movement. We saw, of course, the Unified Left did very well after the dissolution in 2024. There are still a lot of division on the left. Of course, Fabien Glucksmann, elected in the centre-left primary, has refused any alliance with the far left. He has tried to distance himself from the disorder of the last few weeks. He's kept quite a low profile. But I think those divisions on the left are going to cause problems for a long time to come and really do weaken the voice. That idea of the New Popular Front, which came together, would strengthen the voice of the left the next presidential election. But I can't see it being reformed while Jean-Luc Mélenchon remains, you know, unbowed, shall we say, at the head of La France Insoumise. He's a very difficult person for the centre-left to work with. So real challenges, I think, on the left. Andrew, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today. We very much appreciate your time on coming on the show. Thank you.