After the presidential election, the tugs of the RN on the social

” Popular “ and “meritocratic”. In his letter of candidacy for the presidency of the National Rally (RN) broadcast on August 31, Jordan Bardella thus qualifies the populist force he intends to lead if he is officially brought to the head of the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, during the next congress, on November 5. Popular, because the far-right party claims to carry the voice of the “little ones” provided they are French, in an inflection towards workers and employees accentuated under the era of Marine Le Pen. It was completed, in the mouth of Bardella, by the theme of meritocracy which refers to work and social ascent. A semantic evolution that accompanies the change of an electorate integrating more fringes of the upper middle classes.

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Between redistribution and work, the heart of the RN swings. This summer, Marine Le Pen’s deputies voted for most of the emergency aid measures for household purchasing power, including a 4% increase in retirement pensions and social benefits, or a cap on the rise in rents to 3.5%. “We do not assume that when we are poor, we use money badlyexplains Jean-Philippe Tanguy, RN deputy for the Somme. But we don’t shave for free either! We want to lower the constrained expenses and value those who work. » RN deputies, however, fiercely opposed the minimum wage of 1,500 euros. According to them, it was a question of preventing companies from going out of business and inflation from racing by rising wages.

Gilles Ivaldi, CNRS researcher at Cevipof specializing in radical rights, has studied the malaise of the lower middle classes, or “vulnerable insiders”, which make up the intermediate strata voting NR beyond the commonly used category of “losers” from globalization. As a result, the national-populist party must reconcile more diverse expectations. “Classically, these voters feel threatened by elites above and people below perceived as racializedunderlines the researcher. But today, they also reject those who do not contribute to wealth. The figure of the immigrant remains preponderant, but there is also a section of society that in France is designated by the notion of assistantship. »

This pattern permeates far-right populism in the United States, continues the author of the book From Le Pen to Trump: the populist challenge (University of Brussels, 2019): “In this software, only deserving people who have a work ethic should be able to share the wealth. Marine Le Pen has not made welfare a campaign theme since her popular base is very sensitive to social assistance. It focused on foreign countries with a nationalist corpus that did not vary. But this contradiction is going to be one of the many challenges ahead for the RN. If she wants to keep the electorate of Fillon who voted for her, establish her hegemony and take the lead of the Italian-style right-wing pole, the question of the welfare state and welfare will arise for her fundamental way. »

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