The National Rally candidate gathered around 42% of the votes according to estimates, or around 8 points more than in 2017, when she had already faced the same opponent.

"In any case, we are in the context of a major recomposition. It's a great victory to snatch a second round when there was Eric Zemmour", who gathered 7% of the votes, "the bipolarization is confirmed", estimated Philippe Olivier, brother-in-law and close adviser to Marine Le Pen.

Overseas, where the RN candidate came out on top, "the demonization does not seem to have taken", according to him.

To reach these altitudes and hoist the far-right party for the third time in the second round of the presidential election (after 2002 and 2017), Marine Le Pen greatly "demonized" her image during the campaign in order to "reassure".

And she had focused on purchasing power, pushing her controversial plans against immigration and Islamism to the background.

Marine Le Pen (C) before the announcement of the results of the second round of the presidential election, April 24, 2022 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP

Russia

But between the two rounds, Marine Le Pen had to explain herself in more detail about her proposals and did not benefit from the "radicality" of Eric Zemmour, a rival but also a "lightning rod" who made her appear as " centered".

She proposed to revise in depth, by a referendum, the Constitution to include the "national priority", thus breaking with the constitutional principle of equality, as well as the primacy of national law over European and international law.

On the diplomatic level, the candidate has aroused the concern of Western chancelleries by again proposing "a strategic rapprochement" between NATO and Russia once the war in Ukraine is over.

Marine Le Pen surrounded by her team at the announcement of the results of the second round of the presidential election, April 24, 2022 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP

If it turns out that this is indeed his last presidential campaign - Marine Le Pen had told Le Figaro that it would "a priori" be the last - the question of his future and that of of his party.

The ex-candidate wishes in any case, at 53, to continue "to do politics" but does not know "in what form".

Currently MP for Pas-de-Calais, she did not say if she was standing for the June legislative elections.

Laurent Jacobelli, one of its spokespersons, thinks that with around 42% of the votes "we can no longer speak" of a glass ceiling, because it has "progressed in many categories".

Chief Opponent

As for the RN, Marine Le Pen entrusted the reins to her faithful lieutenant Jordan Bardella during the campaign.

"The fate of this party is perhaps to be, like the Italian MSI (former fascist party) for decades, the pole excluded from political life", advances political scientist Jean-Yves Camus.

Either a political family which "collects a considerable percentage of votes, which infuses into society but which will never come to power because it has no allies" and risks obtaining few elected representatives in the legislative elections with a two-round majority vote.

The RN currently has 6 deputies.

Marine Le Pen is about to speak after the announcement of the first estimates for the second round of the presidential election, April 24, 2022 in Paris Thomas SAMSON AFP

Marine Le Pen may not have "sufficiently specified her projects", as if it was enough "to want to be able", adds Mr. Camus.

The RN was also "born on the far right, it still repels people", according to this specialist, while its mode of operation has been criticized internally;

in particular by relatives of his niece Marion Maréchal, who have since left for Eric Zemmour.

It remains to be seen whether she will be able to forge legislative alliances with her rival Reconquest!

which she instead ignored between rounds.

Mr. Zemmour called for a "grand coalition of the rights and all patriots" to "build a majority" in June "against Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon".

Political scientist Pascal Perrineau believes that it can be "difficult to recover from a third defeat" because "after a while, the electorate can get tired and go elsewhere".

But "in the landscape of very fragmented oppositions", Marine Le Pen occupies "the dominant position" and "will remain the chief opponent".

© 2022 AFP