Time to take stock.

The militants of the National Gathering began this Saturday their 17th congress in Perpignan, one week only after a defeat to the regional ones which struck them, but which should not cause change on the line of “normalization” before the presidential one.

The host of this meeting and the city's RN mayor, Louis Aliot, welcomed Marine Le Pen for more than an hour this Saturday morning at the city hall.

He wants to "question" the "share of responsibility" of his training, left empty-handed from the regional, with 30% less elected.

The leaders of the RN, Marine Le Pen in the lead, first accuse the abstention, massive, which particularly affected young people and the working classes, categories in which the RN achieves its best scores.

It is the subject of a round table on "democracy facing the challenge of abstention", in which the mayor of Moissac, Romain Lopez, will participate, who had expressed criticism after the election.

What strategy?

But no question of calling into question the strategy of "normalization" of the discourse, however questioned by activists or on the outskirts of the RN.

"The strategy of openness must continue", was the theme of another round table defended by the head of the ex-LR list in Paca Thierry Mariani.

Romain Lopez also judges that the “summary line” of the RN is “the right one”.

No personality appears in any case capable of carrying internal discontents during the congress, which is not organized around motions or currents as in other formations.

The management of the RN was also accused of having sidelined, last summer, the supporters of the former FN deputy Marion Maréchal, who no longer has his party card.

From “opening to closing”?

Has the RN become too "trivial", at the risk of no longer being of interest to voters?

"A false debate", believes Louis Aliot.

When former President Jean-Marie Le Pen accuses the "delepenisation" of the party, from which he was excluded in 2015, his daughter Marine Le Pen replies that she "is not looking for more or less radicalism" and wants "to act without violence and without weakness ”.

As for "openness" to candidates outside the party, put forward at the regional level but criticized by federations which have seen parachuting at the expense of better-established activists, Louis Aliot says he "prefers openness to the closure ”and argues his conquest of Perpignan, obtained last year“ by opening arms to others, on a project ”.

"We are not going to return to the National Front" and "we still need to seek out people" to "open up and not shrink" the party, abounds on the sidelines of the congress spokesman Sébastien Chenu.

Sunday's failure "does not affect our ability to rally, but we must study the reasons why some of our voters did not go to vote", underlines the MEP and former head of the list in Normandy Nicolas Bay.

The time of the presidential campaign

Another issue of the congress is the upcoming temporary replacement of Marine Le Pen. She is certainly guaranteed to be re-elected president since she is the only candidate for this post, but she intends to let go of the head of the party during the presidential election. The militants, around a thousand, voted in this regard this Saturday a change of the statutes which will allow this interim "for twelve months". In this case, the president of the party will be replaced by the vice-president and, if there are several, by the “first of them”.

The name of the first vice-president should be known by Sunday.

The number two of the party Jordan Bardella is approached for this post, which Louis Aliot is also seeking, in the name of his "experience" of thirty years within the party.

But he does not intend to fight "against all odds".

The activists will also watch the order of arrival of elected officials to the national council (the "parliament" of the party), where Louis Aliot, very popular in the movement, often came out on top.

Protests against the far right 

Between 650 and 3,000 people, with the presidential candidate Philippe Poutou, demonstrated on the sidelines of this congress against the extreme right in Perpignan.

Waving Catalan, CGT or NPA flags, the demonstrators, coming from several departments in the region, marched behind a banner proposing to fight "together against the extreme right", at the call of associations, unions or left parties.

Our file on the RN

The demonstration, supervised by a CGT security service and many police officers, took place in the streets to the west of the city, out of the usual route, opposite the neighborhood where is being held this week -end, the RN congress.

Politics

National rally: Louis Aliot says he has "the legitimacy and the experience" to chair the party

  • Toulouse

  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Perpignan

  • National gathering

  • Louis aliot

  • Marine Le Pen

  • Regional elections