PARIS — Marine Le Pen has always walked a tightrope between being the outsider, intent on taking a wrecking ball to the French establishment, and cultivating a more mainstream image to win sufficiently broad support in the hope of one day becoming president.
The political crisis that has gripped France has brought that stark choice into focus. In one brutal move last week she became the Le Pen of old, the disruptor-in-chief, pulling the plug on the center-right government and pushing the country closer to the brink of chaos and financial turmoil.
Now, as the dust settles, Le Pen must work out whether it was a gamble worth taking or whether she has undone the years of painstaking work aimed at making herself electable. And, after blowing up one government, will she fall back in line and support President Emmanuel Macron’s next prime minister, who could be named as soon as Thursday, or carry on shouting from the sidelines?
In deciding not to shore up Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his center-right government over an austere budget aimed at reducing France’s massive deficit, Le Pen pleased her traditional base. But the move sparked disagreement at the heart of her far-right National Rally party, one of the three big blocs in a fragmented French parliament.
“National Rally officials were very divided about whether they should vote to topple the government,” said a former far-right official, who was granted anonymity to protect relationships. “They are scared that they will go back to being a fringe party.”
For Le Pen to become president, “she needs the pensioners, people who like stability … and now they are probably lost,” the official said.
It’s something her adversaries have already latched onto, gleefully talking up how Le Pen is back to being the reckless and destructive force that has seen her win a record number of lawmakers but lose the contest to be president three times since 2012.
Mindful of how easily Le Pen could lose the middle ground, Macron slammed her party for joining the far left in an “anti-Republican front.” Her party was simply “spawning chaos,” according to one French lawmaker.
It’s a sudden and dramatic about-turn for Le Pen. For years she’s been trying to cultivate a more reasonable image, imposing strict discipline on party officials and taking a zero-tolerance attitude to racism and antisemitism.
But she remains unmoved. “I don’t gamble, I don’t play at the casino … I take political decisions,” she said in an interview on Wednesday. “We were faced with an irresponsible budget, and we tried to be responsible.”
For now, she’s keeping her options open, dialing down the pressure with assurances that she will vote in favor of the emergency budget ― yet still warning she could vote to topple the next government all over again.
But that may be the easy part. There will be moments when she’ll have to make more decisive choices, such as whether she supports the next government’s budget for 2025 and, possibly, an immigration bill.
Pressure of the voters
The 2027 presidential election ― with Macron unable to stand again ― is still firmly in Le Pen’s sights. Last week’s decision was a calculated choice that has burnished her image as the anti-establishment force in France, but one that puts her efforts to widen her appeal on the backburner.
“I think it was a difficult decision for her, that goes against her strategy to make the National Rally more mainstream,” said OpinionWay pollster Bruno Jeanbart. “But the pressure of the voters was getting too strong.”
“It was more important for her to secure her core voters than to catch new ones at a time when a moderate centrist presidential candidate for 2027 hasn’t yet emerged,” he continued.
In a sense, Le Pen came tantalizingly close to the respectability she has always craved.
Barnier, the courteous, conservative elder statesman whom Macron made prime minister in September, resisted branding Le Pen as far-right, scolded ministers for critizing her, and acknowledged her influence on discussions about the budget.
But ultimately she decided that to dance with Barnier would have been the kiss of death.
“The strategy to normalize herself has its limits,” said a conservative heavyweight who knows the National Rally well. “The danger for Marine Le Pen was that she’ll be branded a ‘politician like any other’” if she was too constructive, he said ahead of the vote.
Le Pen chose “the least suicidal” option, according to Sylvain Crépon, an academic and specialist of the far right. “If the National Rally had not voted to topple the government, it would have become the party under the government’s thumb, and they would have lost their protest-vote electorate, who hate Macron,” he said.
With other opposition parties, such as the Socialist Party, the Greens, the conservative Les Républicains and the centrists, now negotiating a possible government pact with Macron, National Rally officials are putting on a brave face despite not being inside the tent.
One of their lawmakers, Philippe Ballard, said he was “confident” those talks would backfire on the mainstream parties and cement the National Rally’s reputation as France’s No. 1 opposition force.
“The old left-right pact is emerging, but they will never manage to agree on anything, whether it’s taxes or security … it all works in our favor,” he said.
The downside, at least for now, is that they’ve lost influence.
Damage control
Already National Rally officials are trying to win back more mainstream voters, arguing the electorate understood and supported their move to bring down the government. They are also bending over backwards to take the sting out of Le Pen’s decision.
In the hours after the vote, Le Pen solemnly described Barnier’s downfall as “not a victory.” Far-right lawmakers have generally avoided gloating, and have promised they will help avert a U.S.-style shutdown for France.
The far right needs to constantly “reassure,” said a National Rally parliamentary adviser. “There are analysts who have followed the government’s line in their desire to scare people.”
But Le Pen’s intransigeance has also left her vulnerable to another line of attack ― that she precipitated a crisis to save her skin.
She is, after all, on trial for embezzling EU funds, and prosecutors have requested that judges ban her from running for public office. The verdict is due in March; Le Pen risks losing everything.
If that request is confirmed, it could destroy her prospects of running in a possible snap election, or even of running for the presidency in 2027.
According to conservative lawmaker Pierre-Henri Dumont, who supported Barnier’s government, Le Pen decided to topple the government now because it will be harder to stage a showdown with Macron later, when she might be ineligible to run for office.
Some have even accused Le Pen of trying to accelerate an institutional crisis in an attempt to force Macron to stand down and hasten the presidential election.
“It would help her if the presidential election was brought forward,” Crépon said. “But I don’t think anyone in National Rally’s ranks thinks Emmanuel Macron will resign in the coming months.”
Despite flirting with chaos in recent weeks, Le Pen has held to her red lines. Unlike the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, she has refused to call for Macron to stand down, even though it could save her from political oblivion.
“She doesn’t want to be seen as a putschist, that’s very clear,” the conservative official said.
Sarah Paillou contributed to this article.
