A point everywhere.

Marine Le Pen will be in Budapest on Tuesday to meet the Hungarian ultraconservative leader Viktor Orban.

The leader of the National Rally thus follows in the footsteps of her rival Eric Zemmour, who came a month earlier.

A strategic move six months from the presidential elections.

"To be received by a head of government in office gives a sign of respectability" to the candidate of the National Rally (RN), estimates the political scientist Jean-Yves Camus.

This trip abroad aims, for Marine Le Pen, to try to regain ground on the polemicist, who is behind her in the polls although still not declared.

She will be entitled to a joint press conference with the Hungarian leader, when her rival was content with a private interview on September 24 in Budapest, on the sidelines of a meeting of the conservative and identity right, just like her niece Marion Marshal.

Give pledges to the most radical fringe of its voters

Marine Le Pen wants "to recall that it exists, given that these two figures of the extreme right have already been to Hungary", notes the historian Nicolas Lebourg. By appearing alongside Viktor Orban, with strong positions on immigration and LGBT + people, she also intends to give pledges to the most radical fringe of her voters, confused by her "demonized" speech.

The RN candidate "needs to boost her own image, to tell this electorate tempted by Eric Zemmour that authoritarianism issue, she also has some stripes", comments Nicolas Lebourg, author with Jean-Yves Camus of an essay on " The extreme rights in Europe ”(Seuil, 2015).

The far-right polemicist again attacked the credibility of his potential rival on Sunday, assuring the RTL-Le Figaro-LCI Grand Jury that Marine Le Pen had no chance of being elected, and that therefore voting for her "is useless".

Le Pen and Orban: the same conception of Europe

Marine Le Pen met Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Brussels on Friday, in conflict with Brussels over the independence of the judiciary and the primacy of European law. The opportunity for her to denounce "the unacceptable blackmail" of the European Commission towards Warsaw. The day before, Viktor Orban had likewise castigated “a witch hunt”.

Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban share conceptions close to Europe.

The first defends "a Europe of nations" and cooperation since it gave up, in 2017, to leave the EU (Frexit) and the euro, while the second, despite its regular conflicts with Brussels on the Rule of law, excludes leaving the Union.

Another common point is the fight against immigration.

Marine Le Pen recently presented a draft referendum on this subject, along the same lines as what defends Viktor Orban, fiercely opposed to the reception of Muslim refugees in the name of "the cultural identity of Europe".

An alliance in the European Parliament in sight

However, for a long time, Viktor Orban did not want to appear with the leader of the French far right. "His position has changed considerably since his party, Fidesz, left the EPP (right) group in the European Parliament" in March 2021, and finds himself more isolated, underlines Eszter Petronella Soos, a Hungarian political scientist specializing in France. "Before, he could not afford it", because the RN is part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group but since this divorce, "Viktor Orban is more open and tries to build a new alliance on the right of the right".

This meeting in Budapest was agreed, according to Marine Le Pen, after the publication, in July, of a "joint declaration" between the candidate of the RN and fifteen allies in Europe, including Viktor Orban, with a view to a alliance in the European Parliament to “reform Europe”.

If this large sovereignist group is born, "the idea is that it can follow the EPP group so that the balance of power between the two rights, classic and nationalist-populist, is the most favorable to the nationalists", analyzes Jean- Yves Camus.

But "it would be surprising if things were to loosen up" quickly in favor of a group common to the RN and Fidesz, according to Nicolas Lebourg, while differences remain on the economic level and on societal issues.

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  • Election campaign

  • Hungary

  • Far right

  • Viktor Orban

  • Marine Le Pen

  • Presidential election 2022

  • Eric Zemmour

  • Elections