Pension reform: the RN in search of an opposition strategy

Alexandre Chauveau 9:33 a.m., January 16, 2023

TO ANALYSE

Apart from the right, which is generally ready to vote for it, the pension reform is opposed by the left and the National Rally.

The party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is forced to play the balancing act: how to oppose without demonstrating alongside unions?

Unlike Jean-Luc Mélenchon's New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), Marine Le Pen's party is betting on the legislative fight.

A strategy that is therefore different but which involves risks.

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Hit the pavement or not?

It must be said that major social events are not really in the culture of the National Rally.

So, if many RN voters should go to the processions, the party's elected officials are not welcome alongside the unions.

The hostility is mutual: Marine Le Pen refuses to parade alongside those who have all called for her to be beaten in the second round of the last presidential election.

The RN, the first opposition group in the Assembly, does not want to leave the monopoly of the challenge to the Nupes necessarily more visible and noisy in the street.

The objective is therefore to take the fight to Parliament by opposing it on the substance of the text.

This also contributes to the search for respectability of the 89 RN deputies who do not want to be associated with possible excesses during the demonstrations.

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But will this strategy be effective?

The question asks internally.

Several deputies are considering the best way to occupy the field alongside the French and not to remain confined to the Palais-Bourbon.

Especially since, in the hemicycle too, the opposition of the RN will be challenged by the Nupes, which has already planned to file several thousand amendments.