There was some logic to that gamble. As Le Pen is banned from running for office by an embezzlement conviction that goes to appeal only next year, why would she risk her parliamentary seat by potentially triggering an election? Wouldn’t she rather let Macron’s camp take the heat for painful financial cuts?
That’s not how Le Pen saw it, however. Barely an hour after the announcement of the confidence vote, she vowed she would mobilize her forces to topple Bayrou, and blamed eight years of Macronism for threatening France’s survival. “Only dissolution will now allow the French people to choose their destiny, that of recovery with the National Rally,” she wrote on social platform X.
That ended any speculation that there could have been some sort of deal brewing between Bayrou and Le Pen. National Rally lawmaker Laurent Jacobelli insisted there should never have been any doubt about which direction Le Pen would jump.
“These people imagine that others are as despicable as they are,” he said. “But that shows a poor understanding of Marine Le Pen, who is not cut from the same cloth.”
While many assumed Bayrou had somehow tested the waters with Le Pen before calling the vote, the prime minister struggled to explain why he actually had not. He noted — rather unconvincingly, in an interview on the TF1 channel — that he didn’t because opposition leaders were “on vacation.”
Le Pen hit back and said she had not stopped working over the summer.