Questioned by Radio J this Sunday, May 28, Elisabeth Borne described the National Rally as a party "heir to Pétain". For her, the victory of the far-right party is quite "possible" in 2027. According to the head of government, the radical left bears responsibility for this breakthrough. The Prime Minister thus accused Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France insoumise of playing "the game of the far right" and of contributing to the rise in violence.
"I don't believe at all in the normalization of the National Rally. I think you shouldn't trivialize your ideas, your ideas are always the same. So now the Rassemblement national is putting the formalities on it, but I still think it's a dangerous ideology,” the prime minister said.
The RN, heir to Pétain? "Yes, also, Pétain's heir, absolutely," replied the Prime Minister. What about Marine Le Pen? "I have never heard Marine Le Pen denounce what may have been the historical positions of her party and I think that a change of name does not change the ideas, the roots", judged the Prime Minister about the party name change in 2018, from FN to RN.
The boss of the far-right party reacted on Sunday: "Elisabeth Borne's remarks about the National Rally are infamous and unworthy. They are not acceptable to the first opposition party, its 88 deputies, its thousands of elected officials and the millions of French people it represents! »
Elisabeth Borne's remarks about the National Rally are infamous and unworthy. They are not acceptable with regard to the first opposition party, its 88 deputies, its thousands of elected officials and the millions of French people it represents! https://t.co/4BT8WoM01S
The party's president, Jordan Bardella, also denounced "serious, misleading and insulting remarks" which "dirty the millions of French people who vote for the RN". "Élisabeth Borne is both uneducated, unworthy and incapable", also crushed the deputy RN Sébastien Chenu, pointing out that among the founders of the movement are resistance fighters.
Ms. Le Pen is "not the heiress of Pétain, don't laugh, the party has changed", assured BFMTV the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, a relative. He felt that "continuing to caricature Marine Le Pen like that, it exasperates people" and thus Élisabeth Borne "plays the game" of the RN.
Asked about the possibility of a victory for Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter in the 2027 presidential election, the head of government replied: "I fear that everything is possible. […] By dint of trivialization, it is a real threat”. She recalled her memories of April 21, 2002, the day Jean-Marie Le Pen qualified for the second round of the presidential election and the elimination of the socialist Lionel Jospin, of whom she was then the adviser to Matignon.
Ms. Borne also judged that there was "an obvious proximity" between the RN and Vladimir Putin. "If [Mme Le Pen] wants to rewrite history, we don't have to fall for this trap. This closeness exists and does not fade,” she said. The former president of the RN defended herself this week of any "Russian tropism" before a parliamentary commission of inquiry.
When asked if Putin's party in France was the RN or La France insoumise, the Prime Minister notably replied: "There are indeed minority voices at the two extremes, which are very ambiguous, which probably do not dare not to publicly display their positions but who do not take the condemnation that one can expect in the face of an aggression by Russia on Ukraine. »
Is it targeting Ms. Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon? “Absolutely […] I think there is the same ambiguity vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin, and the same connivance that continues to exist vis-à-vis him”. Ms. Borne does not, however, put "no equal sign" between the RN and LFI, while this question agitates the presidential camp. “I say that the most dangerous, that the ideology that is fundamentally dangerous, is that of the extreme right. But I see that the behavior of LFI, which ultimately wants to destabilize our country, which attacks our institutions, also plays into the hands of the far right. »
If there are "many factors that explain the rise of violence" in French society, "Jean-Luc Mélenchon has his share of responsibility, when we see [him] screaming in front of the police 'the Republic is me", when we hear him actually want to break, bring down the "bad Republic", make outrageous remarks constantly", judged Ms. Borne, for whom the LFI deputies "do not play the game of democratic debate in the Assembly national".
During this interview, Ms. Borne also spoke about her father, a Holocaust survivor, and her own journey. “I owe everything to the Republic and to my country. I was orphaned at 11, I was a ward of the Nation. Then I joined the École Polytechnique where I was able to continue my studies because I was also paid. And then I started my job in the state,” she said. “It is for me a promise of emancipation, the Republic. »
