Paris (AFP)

Marine Le Pen presidential candidate of 2022? The president of the National Gathering seems to consider more by reason than passion, while it enjoys the absence of rival in his camp and the return in the news of themes for his party.

In view of a likely third candidacy, Marine Le Pen seems "in doubt", notes a party executive.

"In addition, you have to want it, I think we need it most, and in my opinion that's enough," she said on October 17 on Europe 1 to justify her candidacy in 2022. A few days later, she makes up for it by saying that she wants to be a candidate, but especially for "one stops with the policy led".

For the finalist of 2017, "this question does not make sense" because it is "posed as if it was the personal desire of the candidate who justified the approach".

"It's a kind of priesthood" to be a candidate, admits his entourage. Marine Le Pen will go to this poll "by duty, because humanly it's difficult" with personal attacks, and physical fatigue that was one of the reasons for his failed debate against Emmanuel Macron in 2017.

- No rival -

Yet the way has emerged in its camp for the leader of the far right, which does not seem threatened by any rival within the party.

His former right-hand man, Florian Philippot, who had left after the presidential election, failed to give him a European shadow by winning 0.65% of the vote, when the RN came in first with 23.3%.

And his niece Marion Maréchal made it clear that she had "no intention to be a candidate" in 2022, after having given voice several times, fueling speculation about her future.

The "convention of the right", organized by the relatives of the former FN deputy in order to seduce the electorate of the Republicans, is "a total failure", we say to the RN, pointing the speech " hyper radical "polemist Eric Zemmour.

Ms. Le Pen also benefits from a return to current issues dear to his party: a debate on immigration to the Assembly, a controversy over the veil revived by the intervention of a elected RN in Burgundy- France County, and security issues raised after the bombing at the Paris police headquarters. Not to mention the words of Emmanuel Macron himself, as when, for example, he evokes communitarianism as a project of "secession in the Republic".

By not opening for the moment on any proposal, the debate on the immigration also gave "grist to grind" to those who consider that the government "does not do anything", notes an elected LREM.

- "Prevention" -

As for the divisions of the majority on the veil, they also "serve the opposing side", adds the same elected.

"It's a good sequence," recognizes Marine Le Pen's special advisor, Philippe Olivier.

Are the conditions of victory met? "It's not for me to answer, it's the French people who will speak," is content to say the finalist of 2017, which argues the "progress" of the RN at each election.

"There is a diary effect, but it is not more powerful than previous times," tempers the director of the Jean Jaurès Foundation Gilles Finchelstein.

"On the other hand, preventions against the RN are still not lifted and it continues to be considered, for the most part, as training that has no solutions or is not capable of governing", adds he quoted the Sopra-Steria study published in September for the foundation and Le Monde.

And Marine Le Pen remains the personality with the highest level of rejection, according to the Ipsos-Le Point survey conducted in October. And the analyst to advance a hypothesis: "This feeling that it will not succeed eventually penetrate."

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