PARIS — Marine Le Pen has already helped topple two French governments in less than a year. She didn’t even need to pull the trigger to kill off a third one.
The far-right leader was bullish on Monday after President Emmanuel Macron and his allies failed in their latest attempt to form a government that could haul France out of its political and economic crisis. His centrist liberals are now in utter disarray and Le Pen’s top lieutenants in the National Rally are shifting into election campaign mode.
“We are ready to govern,” National Rally President Jordan Bardella said outside the party’s headquarters as he walked out of a high-level meeting with Le Pen, re-upping calls for Macron to call for a new parliamentary election immediately.
The president is more isolated than ever after his longtime ally, outgoing Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, resigned on Monday morning after announcing a new government the previous evening.
“I am calling on him to dissolve the National Assembly. We are at the end of the road,” Le Pen hammered. “The joke is over, the farce has gone on long enough … By irrationally fighting institutions, Emmanuel Macron is putting the country in a terribly complicated situation.”
Top advisers to both Le Pen and Bardella were summoned to the party’s headquarters on the outskirts of Paris to hash out next steps Monday morning after Lecornu announced his resignation. Cat lover Le Pen took a kitten in its travel cage to the crunch meeting.
The appointment of Lecornu represented Macron’s third attempt to find a way out of a crisis born out of his ill-fated call for a snap election last year, which resulted in a hung parliament where Macron’s centrists and its allies control only roughly a third of the seats.
The left and the far right control the remaining two thirds but are pulling in politically opposite directions, nipping in the bud every successive government’s attempt at breaking the deadlock amid a spiraling budget crisis.
“We are now waiting for a dissolution,” one of Le Pen’s top advisers, who was granted anonymity as he is not authorized to speak publicly, said after the meeting.
Another official said the meeting was used to discuss and fine tune messaging around the party’s platform ahead of potential snap elections.
A National Rally MEP who took part in a parallel, planned meeting about election preparations said discussions in the party now focused on gearing up for campaigning.
“We are looking at the last [unattributed] constituencies, meetings, posters … [up to] paper order,” she said.
Eric Ciotti, the head of a small right-wing party allied with Le Pen, said his lawmakers and those of the National Rally had unanimously decided to try to topple any future prime minister if Macron tried to put someone forward before new elections.
“We will immediately censure any new government,” he said.
National Rally’s ‘prophecy’
Polling consistently puts the National Rally way ahead of other political parties with around 33 to 34 percent of the vote in a possible legislative election. Macron’s party is trailing third, with half that voting share. Leftist candidates are polling second.
Macron is likely to explore all alternatives before calling for another election. This includes potentially naming yet another prime minister, but this time hailing from the left. The far right, however, is betting that the pressure for a return to the ballot box will prove too high.
An election would present a personal challenge for Le Pen, as she is currently subject to a five-year election ban as a result of an embezzlement conviction earlier this year. But the far-right leader has been adamant she won’t let her personal situation weigh in on her leadership decisions.
Top advisers to the party are also preparing their troops for intense scrutiny over any campaign, including by ironing out possible internal divisions. The party’s line on economic policy has been a sore point, with some of the party’s old guard sticking to Le Pen’s protectionist agenda aimed at the working class while others favored a more free market approach championed by Bardella.
“There were words on TV that weren’t exactly in line,” a top adviser to Le Pen said, referring to mixed signals sent by MPs on fiscal issues, including a tax on capital gains.
Asked whether the latest development was a golden opportunity for his party, MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, one of Le Pen’s most faithful lawmakers, said: “Seeing our country in angst is not a golden opportunity, it is the realization of a prophecy.”
The party’s rank-and-file echoed their leaders’ regular attacks on mainstream political parties, whom they accuse of leading the country toward the abyss.
Le Pen on Monday also blamed the conservative Les Républicains, who were part of the outgoing government, and the Socialists, who have been negotiating with the government on the 2026 budget, for the chaos, slamming “two political forces who are destroying their own credibility.”
The National Rally’s seemingly unstoppable march to power comes as the far right scores points across the continent, sending ripples through the European Union.
Bardella, who has been molded for the prime minister job should the National Rally win an absolute majority in future parliamentary elections, defiantly linked his surge at national level to his ability to upend the traditional EU order too. Shortly after meeting Le Pen, he headed to Strasbourg to vote in a motion of no confidence targeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a Macron ally.
“France is in the process of freeing itself from Macronism; it is time to break with Macron’s Europe as well,” Bardella posted on X.
Sarah Paillou contributed reporting to this story.
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