Marine Le Pen has dosed her public interventions a lot and has been quite discreet during the serious national crisis that France has experienced due to the revolt in the suburbs. The leader of the extreme right, candidate for the Élysée three times in a row, knows well that events are playing in favor of her party, the National Regrouping (RN), which the polls show to be the winner in next year’s European elections.
Le Pen is no longer formally the president of the RN – the position is held by Jordan Bardella, 27 years old – but no one doubts that, if the circumstances are minimally favourable, she will try for the fourth time to become head of state in 2027.
Bardella himself and other party leaders have intervened in the media on a daily basis, always trying to bring water to his mill. But Le Pen has not been lavished, on the contrary. Analysts have been surprised by his relative silence in the acute phase of the riots. Le Pen has preferred to maintain a discreet and prudent profile, reserving himself. It is important for her to build a presidential aura.
In reality, Le Pen’s discretion was already very noticeable during the long months of mobilizations in the streets against the pension reform. His party was against pushing the retirement age back from 62 to 64, but he did not present a convincing alternative plan. She preferred to say little and observe, pleased, how Macron and his government were wearing out. Now you have tried something similar.
The former presidential candidate did intervene in the National Assembly on Tuesday during the session of questions to the Government, when the worst of the riots had already passed. Le Pen was very aggressive. Addressing the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, she snapped: “At a time when our country is the victim of looting, looting and senseless incendiary rage, I would like to ask you the question that all French people ask themselves: what have they done you?”. The far-right deputy lamented that this government has followed the same policy as its predecessors for forty years, allowing lawless areas plagued by crime and communitarianism (voluntary social segregation).
“What have they done to have allowed ignorance of our culture, hostility towards the legal authority of the State, the illegitimacy of our laws and hatred of our people to prosper? Le Pen went on. What have they done to transform our country, among the most courteous, the most elegant and sweetest on earth, and turn it into a hell where public buildings burn? Le Pen concluded her tirade by recalling that “this spectacle afflicts the entire world, provokes pity and irony”, and she was concerned about the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Government, meanwhile, begins to take measures to compensate the damage suffered in some sectors by the days of excesses. Shops will be able to open on Sunday and the summer sales season is extended by a week, despite the fact that in many regions school holidays and the exodus of families will have already begun.
A fact known yesterday could once again exasperate spirits. It was learned that an Uber delivery man, Mohamed, 27, died on the night of Saturday to Sunday of cardiac arrest on a street in the center of Marseille. The young man, the father of a young son and whose partner is pregnant, was videotaping the riots. According to the police, the violent impact on the thorax of the victim’s body would be compatible with the firing of a rubber bullet, one of the theoretically non-lethal weapons used by riot police. The investigation is still inconclusive and the circumstances of what happened remain to be clarified, but the news, which took several days to be revealed, which was suspicious, is not positive for the Government. It is only known that the deceased was on a motorcycle when he was hit. It is not clear that he participated in the riots. As his partner indicated to the BFM-TV station, he simply took pictures with her mobile phone.
The riots were slow to reach Marseille, but when they did they were virulent. It is estimated that some 400 shops were looted.
According to a latest report from the Ministry of the Interior, presented by its head, Gérald Darmanin, in the Senate, during the wave of violence, 2,508 buildings were burned or damaged throughout France and 12,031 vehicles went up in flames. Of the 3,505 people arrested, 60% had no judicial or police records. The youngest detainee was a boy of only 11 years old, and the oldest, 59.
Darmanin indicated that it would be wrong to give an “identitary explanation” to the riots. According to the minister, among those arrested “there are many Kévin and Mattéo”, indirectly suggesting that it is not true that the children and grandchildren of Arab and African immigrants were the main culprits in the disorders.
