This exclusion comes as the far-right party, which chooses a new president on Saturday between Louis Aliot and Jordan Bardella, has been trying to take this strategy to a new level since its massive arrival in the hemicycle — 89 deputies — following the June legislative elections.
Thursday, the elected rebellious – and black – Carlos Martens Bilongo spoke about the “drama of illegal immigration”, when the deputy RN of Gironde Grégoire de Fournas launches “that he returns to Africa”, causing an incident of a rare scale at the Palais Bourbon.
He received an extremely rare sanction on Friday, his exclusion from the Assembly for 15 sitting days and the deprivation of half of his parliamentary allowance for two months.
The RN denounces a “manipulation” of LFI, Marine Le Pen evoking a “rough” controversy. “We are judged by our political opponents,” she reacted after the announcement of the sanction.
– “True face” –
The condemnations of the rest of the political class are unanimous, even to the head of state “hit” by “intolerable words”.
“The varnish cracks”, denounced the deputy Renaissance Sylvain Maillard. “The far right has shown its true face,” added his rebellious colleague Mathilde Panot.
The incident falls very badly on the eve of the appointment of a new president for the far-right party.
On October 6, however, Marine Le Pen, for the 50th anniversary of the party, insisted on the “republican” character of the RN, its “morph”, its “aggiornamento”.
A modest symposium, but a culmination of a meticulously constructed strategy of demonization since Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter took up the torch in 2011 with the mission of making people forget the “details of history” and the racist provocations of the father.
The arrival of the 89 deputies in the Assembly after the June legislative elections, all in ties and aware of their “responsibility”, was to complete the metamorphosis of the National Rally into a “party of government”.
Alas, the mandate began with difficulty: the dean of the Assembly José Gonzales immediately praised the French Algeria of his childhood. The controversy is immediate and the left denounces a “nostalgia for colonization”.
At the end of October, the deputy RN Alexandra Masson had also aroused the indignation of the left by considering in the hemicycle that the rescuers at sea were intended to “save lives” and not to “fetch always more migrants”.
“The tie does not hide the far right. It is a knife stroke to this image of responsibility, respectability, government party that the RN wanted to build”, explains the director general of the polling institute Ifop Frederic Dabi.
The event can also undermine the “strategy of distinction” undertaken by the party which wishes to highlight “its seriousness” compared to the “agitation” aroused by the rebellious elected officials, adds the expert.
– “J’assume” –
“But what does this affair weigh in relation to inflation, shortages, the Lola affair, which are the main concerns of the French?” Asks Mr. Dabi. “Do not believe that (they) have been following this case all night.”
Immigration remains “at the heart” of the concerns of the RN electorate, despite a few steps aside in the field of high prices, notes the pollster.
Also on Friday, the whole party stands together around a supposed “courage” of the deputy of Fournas, who would have expressed his opposition to immigration.
“I don’t think it re-demonizes us at all. The French will see the manipulation. It may be a small evil for a great good,” said MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy.
“Wishing that illegal immigrants return home is not racism! It is simply what republican law must organize in the event of irregular entry,” added MEP Thierry Mariani.
“I will not let go! I assume my words on the anarchic migration policy of our country and I will continue to do so in the face of the political and media pack”, tweeted Grégoire de Fournas.
