QWho would have believed it when, in the fall of 2021, Eric Zemmour seemed to set the tone for a presidential pre-campaign with a strong smell of rancid? Or when Valérie Pécresse, adrift, referred to the “great replacement” during the Parisian meeting in February supposed to put her back in the saddle? In the end, the presidential election was not played out on the fear of immigrants and the fear of Islam. The closer the election date approached, the more these favorite subjects of French political debate, the very ones that had inflamed controversy for months, were muted.
The quasi-disappearance of identity themes was shown in spectacular fashion during the televised duel between the two rounds. Relegated at the very end of the program by the draw, immigration did not give rise to any particular exchange. Emmanuel Macron had no interest in it, but Marine Le Pen, who makes it the alpha and omega of his political project, did not particularly seek to “sell” his bewildering referendum intended to legalize discrimination and banishment foreigners in the name of “national priority”.
Erasing immigration from electoral rhetoric seems to break with a practice that has been well established for more than three decades: from François Mitterrand, who waved the red rag of the vote of foreigners to raise the National Front and weaken his opposition, to the Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign on “national identity”.
This unexpected eclipse could only be cyclical: the return of war in Europe and the economic earthquakes it triggers dominate all other concerns. It also happens that Eric Zemmour, by trying to turn Muslims into scapegoats for all the ills of the country, has exempted Marine Le Pen from playing too ostensibly on the identity rope. Cleverly, she was able to prosper by presenting herself as the protector of “France from below” against the “president of the rich”.
Themes stolen from the left
At first sight, one could welcome the sidelining of a toxic theme, the attenuation of discourse calling for hatred and exploiting fears. The reality is much less encouraging: the xenophobic positions of Mme Le Pen are so established that she no longer even needs to put them forward. It can advance on another field: the social.
By campaigning on themes stolen from the left – the defense of purchasing power, the protection of the State and secularism –, it attracted 42% of workers having voted in the first round and 67% in the second. “Marine Le Pen managed to get out of the corner of immigration, analyzes the sociologist Vincent Tiberj. It has shown itself capable of winning voters both on an identity basis and on an economic logic, at the same time in the workers’ North favorable to redistribution and among voters in the South hostile to taxes. »
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