• These 2021 regional elections mark a stinging failure for the National Rally: no region won and fewer votes collected than in 2015.

  • The party suffered particularly from the abstention, since 64% of its supporters did not vote.

  • A new constraint for the party, which perhaps suffers from its much desired demonization: better integrated into the system and traditional politics, is it also suffering the massive rejection of the French?

Big favorite of the pre-election polls, which saw it win several regions and be the first party in France, the National Rally (RN) finally emerges from these 2021 regional without having conquered any community, and, even more scathing failure. , with fewer votes than in previous regional ones. In 2015, Marine Le Pen's party won nearly 7 million votes in the second round, with 27.10% of the vote, or 7 points more than this year.

An electoral disavowal which is explained in particular by a strong abstention.

According to an Ipsos poll, 64% of RN sympathizers did not vote, with the main reason for "expressing dissatisfaction with politicians".

Clearly, the record abstention from these elections (67% in the first round and 65% in the second) will not have done the business of the far-right party, to such an extent that Marine Le Pen has repeatedly attacked his troops on their lack of participation.

“People believe that by abstaining they oppose the system but abstention favors the leavers, the movements already in place.

(…) By abstaining, they consolidate the system, ”she had again launched this Friday on BFM.

Really ?

Be like the others ... and have the faults of others

This is perhaps precisely the limit of the demonization strategy that the 2022 presidential candidate wears. By dint of wanting to become a banal party, the RN would now, in the eyes of some of its voters in particular, party "of the system", to use the words of Marine Le Pen. In fact, the party would suffer as much as the other parties from abstention, rejection of policies and the “all rotten” sentiment. “The National Rally no longer appears to be an opposition force sufficiently different from other parties to unite in elections with a high rate of abstention. It is no longer this party outside the system which could serve as an alternative for those disgusted with politics, ”explains Christèle Lagier, lecturer in political science at the University of Avignon and specialist in the RN vote.

This is not so much a novelty of these elections, recalls the expert.

Already in 2017, for the presidential election, Marine Le Pen was credited with 28% of the votes and first place in the first round.

It will collect "only" 22% of the vote, even being preceded by Emmanuel Macron.

For several years, the National Gathering has therefore struggled to exploit its full potential from the polls to the ballot box.

Large gap and absence of base

How to explain it? "It is a historically fractured party, between an ideological militant base very anchored to the extreme right, and a contribution of voters come little by little electoral disavowals", analyzes Christèle Lagier. This contribution, which allows the National Rally to influence, is very unstable over the elections. In other words, "the party does not have a solid electoral base", attests the political scientist. An astructuring which is particularly expensive in this type of election which does not attract crowds outside the electoral base. The proof is that the most traditional and historic parties of the left and the right have won all the regions this year.

By dint of making the big gap between its far-right ideological base and its attempts at normalization, the National Rally is lost a little.

“It is enough to see that in Paca, they sent Thierry Mariani.

Difficult to play the anti-system party and which contrasts with the policies "All rotten" when your candidate has spent most of his career with the Republicans ", asserts Christèle Lagier.

The cause of the ailments?

Only here, and this is perhaps the limit of this theory, in 2015, it was Marion Maréchal Le Pen who had presented himself in Paca, embodying more the hardest line of the National Rally ... without really making a score different from Thierry Mariani (around 40% in the second round for both). “To say that the demonization of the National Rally poses a problem for it, this demonization should already be effective. However, we see it with the republican front in Paca (LR and LREM forged an alliance from the first round), even in the face of a candidate who is less extreme, there is demonization of the party ”, estimates Gilles Ivaldi, researcher at the CNRS and specialist in populism and the extreme right.

For the researcher, nothing further says that the standardization sought by Marine Le Pen is the explanation for this failure at the regional level. Admittedly, he recognizes the hypothesis as being credible, but according to him it is still too early to establish it in truth. Even less in this very special election. “Usually, the National Rally uses anger and a vote presented as a disavowal for Emmanuel Macron to make its inroads. This election has not been described as such, and it is more weariness than anger that dominates. However, the regional ones were presented as a rehearsal of the next presidential election ... for which Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are favorites, as in 2017.

The National Gathering has understood this well and has already set the course for 2022, which for Marine Le Pen "appears more than ever as the election which makes it possible to change policies and change policies" .

Sweeping away an electoral setback by pointing to a new objective, a strategy which resembles those of… the other parties.

Elections

Regional results: Abstention still record, outgoing reelected and flop for the RN ... The lessons of the ballot

  • National gathering

  • Marine Le Pen

  • Regional elections

  • Abstention

  • Vote