Convergence of Discourses: Mathilde Panot and Marine Le Pen's Speeches

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[...] Introduction On Monday, September the National Assembly did not approve the government's general policy statement. The general policy statement made by Prime Minister François Bayrou was mainly focused on mastering public finances and proposing a 45 billion euro savings plan to the National Assembly with notable measures such as the abolition of two public holidays for workers. This general policy statement took place in a context of institutional instability, marked by the formation of a post-dissolution central block bringing together Renaissance, the MoDem, Horizons, and The Republicans, even though the New Popular Front alliance had come out on top in the legislative elections following the June 2024 dissolution, and the National Rally presented itself as the first party in France in terms of the number of seats taken individually. [...]

[...] We also find in Mathilde Panot's speech, as well as in Marine Le Pen's, the instruments of this usage. Mathilde Panot tends to use emphases throughout her speech to denounce a dramatic situation for the French, as shown in the following excerpts: "Macronism is a factory of child abuse" or even "You will leave behind only the risk of a financial crisis." For Marine Le Pen, the style is also emphatic and polemical to denounce and discredit the current rulers: "The disaster for the French of today" or even "The agony of a ghost government." These hyperboles serve their political objectives: to denounce the ineffectiveness of the rulers in place and their actions, in order to legitimize themselves as legitimate rulers. [...]

[...] Thus, the discursive forms imprinted are not insignificant and clearly inscribe themselves in populist rhetoric. We will see that these discourses do not escape the key messages of populist discourses by questioning representative democracy. II. A questioning of representative democracy A. A fierce opposition to the elites The speeches of Mathilde Panot and Marine Le Pen inscribe themselves in an essential reading grid of populist movements that oppose the people to the established elites, seen as the main responsible for crises political and economic. [...]

[...] These speeches therefore tend to disqualify the ruling elites and propose a unique political solution: degagism. III. A convergent political solution: degagism Degagism, which can be defined as a solution for the renewal of political elites, appears as the preferred solution in these two speeches. For Mathilde Panot of the France Insoumise, it is accompanied by a constitutional revolution and the establishment of a 66th Republic. For Marine Le Pen, it is accompanied by a return to a conservative reading of the sense of institutions and elections. [...]

[...] Des logics discursive populistes The social and political psychologist, Alexandre Dorna, analyzes that populist discourses inscribe themselves in specific political contexts, which have allowed their emergence, such as the crisis of modern society, the dysfunctions of representative democracy, the transformations of individual and national identities, the influence of the media, or the ideological tensions confronting each other in the media public space. According to him, these discourses articulate around logics that we find in the two speeches of Marine Le Pen of the National Rally and Mathilde Panot of the Unsubmissive France: 'the weight of words, rhetorical figures, and ideological influence'1. We will thus analyze in this first part that these two speeches adopt an emphatic and dramatic style to denounce and in a second time that they reappropriate the national narrative to inscribe themselves in its continuity. [...]