Historically, the complex dynamic of ad hoc, last-minute alliances that shape local elections in France’s two-round system has worked against the National Rally, with the far right accusing the rest of the political class of conspiring to keep it out of power.
But its leaders now hope they can break that glass ceiling ahead of next year’s presidential race.
During his speech at the rally, Bardella’s message to France’s conservative party was simple: “Join us,” he said.
“We are facing a wall that is being built against us,” Jacobelli told POLITICO on the sidelines of the rally. “It is not a glass ceiling, it is a reflex of self-preservation” from other parties.
During Bardella’s speech, a small group overcome by enthusiasm chanted “Jor-dan president, Jor-dan president” — forgetting for the moment that Marine Le Pen, who had a front row seat to the scene, is still supposed to be their presidential candidate pending a decision in her appeal of a five-year election ban.
In the crowd, supporters vigorously approved both leaders’ odes to the working class and their chastising of leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“If Mélenchon goes through, we lose France forever,” Jordan Delvallée, a blue-eyed, 22-year-old mechanic who came to the rally with a younger friend. “There is no better party than [the National Rally],” he said, even if “everybody is against them.”
“The French get cold feet at second round because they are scared, but one shouldn’t be afraid of change.”