Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally and candidate for 2022, faces judges on Wednesday for posting images of Daesh abuses on Twitter.

Then, she will oppose the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin Thursday during a televised debate.

A busy news, fifteen months before the presidential election, deciphered by Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist and far-right specialist, on Europe 1. 

INTERVIEW

Marine Le Pen faces justice this Wednesday in Nanterre, alongside Gilbert Collard.

The president of the National Gathering is on trial for having relayed violent images of Islamic State abuses in 2015 on her Twitter account, themselves broadcast on the internet for propaganda purposes.

A trial, fifteen months before the 2022 presidential election, which should have no influence on the score of the far-right party, according to Jean-Yves Camus, journalist and political scientist, on Europe 1. On the contrary, it could serve the arguments defended by the party. 

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

"None of the court cases that involved the National Rally or Marine Le Pen harmed the party," assures the far-right specialist.

This trial could on the contrary serve the purpose of Marine Le Pen, who has made the fight against Islamism her hobbyhorse, because for public opinion the accusation will be "paradoxical", according to Jean-Yves Camus.

"Marine Le Pen will be able to explain, and her speech will be audible, that by broadcasting such images, she is not part of the propaganda of an organization that she has always fought but that its objective was' educational '".

A bill tabled to "ban Islamism"

This trial falls in a busy media period for the National Gathering, in particular with the debate scheduled for Thursday evening between Marine Le Pen and the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, on France 2. "This coincides with a news from the RN which is the filing of the week passed by Marine Le Pen on a bill aimed at banning Islamism ", also decrypts Jean-Yves Camus.

This bill, with an imprecise definition, would allow "on the one hand the enactment of prohibitive measures for associations and organizations, and on the other hand a certain number of measures targeting individuals, such as the prohibition of access to the public service for people who are suspected of relaying Islamist propaganda ", specifies the director of the Observatory of political radicalities of the Jean Jaurès Foundation.

>> READ ALSO - 

When Marine Le Pen wants to "unite" around animal protection

If legally the project has little chance of succeeding, and will probably be retested by the Constitutional Council, the political strategy of the National Rally is not affected by it, explains the political scientist.

"She will explain that precisely, one of the tragedies of this country is that everything is under the control of a constitutional judge who always finds 'the little beast' to prevent the framework from changing", analyzes Jean-Yves Camus .

"What Marine Le Pen wants is to overturn the table."

Objective 2022 with several challenges for the RN candidate

The first to declare herself a candidate for the 2022 presidential election, there is no doubt that Marine Le Pen has the ballot in her sights.

A last Harris Interactive survey in January 2021 credits the RN candidate with 48% of intention to vote in the second round against Emmanuel Macron.

And according to an Ipsos poll for Le Figaro published on Tuesday, 67% of those polled consider a second round quite or very likely between the President of the Republic and the boss of the RN.

>> READ ALSO -

 For Marion Maréchal, Marine Le Pen "cannot win alone" in the presidential election in 2022

A campaign that will be played on the theme of identity, a theme dear to the National Gathering, but which could be shaken up by the results of the Covid-19 and the health crisis, suggests the specialist of the far right.

"It is also the pandemic that will decide the fate of the 2022 presidential election," he assures us.

"The big stake for Marine Le Pen to cross the 50% plus one vote mark is first of all the mobilization of her own electorate. It was not necessarily maximum in the municipal elections, in the very particular context of start of the pandemic ", explains Jean-Yves Camus.

"Secondly, the mobilization of the abstainers. And then also, what will do the voters more to the right of LR, who are for the moment in a rather particular situation since they do not have a candidate for the presidential election. "