Guest of La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews on Wednesday, Dominique Reynié, political scientist and general director of the Foundation for Political Innovation, returned in particular to the process of normalization of the National Rally and to the challenge posed by the municipal elections of 2026 for the party with the flame.
While Jordan Bardella is designated as the favorite candidate of the French for the European elections, Dominique Reynié, political scientist and director general of the Foundation for Political Innovation, sees in this position a mark of the normalization of the National Rally within life French politics: “It is clearly becoming a right-wing party”, underlines the specialist during La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews on Wednesday. However, not all right-wing parties recognize this change: “Not all of the right sees it, one part remains with the LR and the other still clings to macronism but it is clear that the National Rally (RN) is become a very firmly established party.
A municipal frontism
According to Dominique Reynié, the party with the flame must still prove itself: “If in the municipal elections of 2026, there is municipal frontism as there once was municipal communism, the matter will be heard”.
The potential victory of the National Rally in the municipal elections threatens the traditional right: “The classic right will not be able to recover for a very long time from what is happening to it because it will lose the bases which mean that it still holds the Senate today for example”, analyzes the political scientist.
“Voting for the RN is a way of expressing one’s anger, perhaps even of feeling a form of jubilation because we see the trouble that this type of electoral result causes. But voting for one’s commune to become RN is is different. And so there we will have a real measure of the rooting or not of the National Rally. Paradoxically, whether it is Macronism, the RN or La France insoumise, these are three political forces which exist at the national level but which have not no local regional base. They are completely detached from the reality on the ground which they nevertheless very often evoke”, concludes the specialist.