Are Macron’s days numbered? His opponent Le Pen is in the starting blocks

Emmanuel Macron enjoyed his appearance at the “Parade of Champions” – the last major ceremony with which France said goodbye to the Olympic and Paralympic Games on Saturday. The head of state handed out medals to particularly deserving athletes, while the people cheered on the Place de l’Étoile and military aircraft painted the colors of the tricolor in the sky. Macron would have liked it to go on like this forever.

But many want to bring the French president back down to earth, especially his worst enemies on the far left and the far right. “We must put an end to Macron’s coup!”, shouted the head of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, to his supporters at an alternative festival at the weekend. The left-wing people’s tribune has not forgiven Macron for recently electing a conservative, Michel Barnier, as the new prime minister instead of considering the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front populaire (NFP), which won the most seats in the parliamentary elections in July.

“We must be impeccable”

Mélenchon has been threatening the president with impeachment proceedings for weeks. Although this is considered to be largely hopeless due to the high constitutional hurdles in France, it sounds good to the radical left, where the tone against Macron and his business supporters has recently become more strident. “They have started to destroy our country. These billionaires are like ticks on the nation’s wealth, saturated with tax benefits,” Mélenchon raged.

Macron’s opponents are also currently gathering their strength in the Rassemblement National (RN). Marine Le Pen’s party is also at loggerheads with Macron, but it is clearly setting different priorities than its left-wing counterpart. Dozens of smartly dressed party officials met in a hall of the Assemblée nationale on Saturday under the leadership of Jordan Bardella, the young RN leader, and his political foster mother Le Pen. It is important that Bardella be “impeccable” to his party friends. Because unlike their political opponents, the public will not forgive the RN for any mistakes.

The right-wing nationalists’ new strategy is to leave no room for riots, which is why they want to get rid of openly racist, anti-Semitic or simply incompetent candidates. One of these “bad apples” is RN MP Christine Engrand, who was caught using public money to register on dating apps or take her dogs to the hairdresser. Training courses are to be held to further professionalize the cadres and prepare each candidate to explain the party’s program on a talk show.

At the beginning of September, Le Pen had made it clear to Macron that she did not want to immediately topple Barnier with a vote of no confidence. The 73-year-old conservative at least represented similar positions to her party on migration policy, she told the press. But Le Pen now made it clear to the RN delegates that she did not see a future for the new prime minister. Barnier was ultimately the representative of a party – the Républicains – that only came fourth in the elections. “But our country cannot function like this if it is led by a political force that only got 5 percent.”

In fact, there could be new elections in France as early as summer 2025, ten months after Macron ordered the dissolution of parliament. A scenario that Le Pen expressly wants. “I hope that your term in office will be just as short,” she told the RN MPs. Until then, the party, i.e. its direction, should conduct a “permanent campaign”, tap into new voter groups and keep an eye on the change of power.

The 56-year-old Le Pen will probably run for president for a fourth time in 2027, if the current incumbent Macron does not throw in the towel beforehand. And to do so, she will continue to push forward the course of normalization and “de-demonization” of her party that she began years ago. It is fitting that the figurehead of the French right has chosen a former supporter of La France insoumise as her new cabinet chief, who is due to take office in November.

Ideological contradictions

Ambroise de Rancourt, a 37-year-old professional pianist and graduate of the elite ENA university, was once a fan of Mélenchon and communism before switching sides, disillusioned with left-wing identity politics. He is the face of a strategy by which the RN seeks to round up disaffected voters from the left and position itself as an alternative to Macron-style liberalism.

Not all party members share this course. It was Bardella himself who took a more liberal line during the election campaign in order to reassure France’s business circles. The party wants to promote the domestic economy, for example through tax relief, but it also promised its voters that the pension reform would be repealed, which is actually hardly affordable anymore. Bardella vowed during the election campaign to continue to support Ukraine, which meant a break with the election program. It is these contradictions that reveal the internal tensions within the RN and are likely to lead to serious conflicts if the right-wing nationalists actually come to power.