Le Pen has already presented herself as the alternative president, delivering a sober speech to the nation on Sunday and presenting herself as the candidate of a “pacified France.”
Jordan Bardella, president of his National Rally party, raised the bar on the protests and presented his party as the only one capable of restoring order, stoking fears about looting. Rioters “will soon break into homes,” he said at a news conference in Paris. “The authorities are collapsing.”
But excessive and prolonged chaos could backfire on a party long seen as the instigator of civil unrest. And the subject is already debated within the National Rally.
“Some say this shows there will be riots if the National Rally comes to power,” said Charles-Henri Gallois, one of Bardella’s advisers. “But I don’t believe it.”
According to the conservative cited above, periods of instability can lead the French to turn their backs on protest figures and prefer traditional veterans.
“You could end up with (Charles) De Gaulle on the Champs-Élysées,” the official said, referring to how the first president of the Fifth Republic emerged with additional powers after the 1958 crisis that rocked the country.
Gn world
