Elisabeth Borne attacked the National Rally (RN) on Sunday, “heir to Pétain” whose victory she considers “possible” in 2027, while accusing Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France insoumise of playing “the game of extreme right” and to contribute to the rise of violence. “I do not believe at all in the normalization of the National Rally. I think that one should not trivialize its ideas, its ideas are always the same. So now, the National Rally is putting the forms in it, but I continue to think that it is a dangerous ideology,” said the Prime Minister in an interview with Radio J broadcast on Sunday.
“I have never heard Marine Le Pen denounce what the historic positions of her party may have been”
The RN, heir to Pétain? “Yes, also, heir to Pétain, 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.
Asked about the possibility of a victory for the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential election of 2027, 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 socialist Lionel Jospin, for whom she was then adviser to Matignon.
There is an “obvious proximity” between the RN and Vladimir Putin
Ms. Borne also judged that there was “an obvious proximity” between the RN and Vladimir Putin. “If (Ms. Le Pen) wants to rewrite history, we don’t have to fall into this trap. This proximity exists and cannot be erased,” she assured. 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 on the far right or on the far left, in the RN or in La France insoumise, the Prime Minister replied in particular: “there are indeed minority voices at the two extremes , which are very ambiguous, which no doubt do not dare to publicly display their positions but which do not take the condemnation that one would expect in the face of an aggression by Russia on Ukraine”.
Mélenchon’s “share of responsibility”
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 complicity which continues to exist vis-à-vis him”.
Elisabeth 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 which 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 in 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 actually hear him wanting 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 National Assembly”.
“I owe everything to the Republic and to my country”
During this interview, Elisabeth 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 pupil of the Nation. Then I joined the Ecole Polytechnique where I was able to continue my studies because I 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”.