Over the past few days, Marine Le Pen's phone has rung frequently. President Emmanuel Macron has been asking for the far-right leader's opinion. What does she think of Xavier Bertrand for prime minister? Nothing good. Le Pen has a fierce hatred for Bertrand, the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) president of the northern region where is elected. And she let Macron know it. So, the representative of the moderate right is no longer a frontrunner for the job.

That possibility, which kept the political and media world on tenterhooks for several hours, was dismissed late on Wednesday, September 4. The day before, the fate of the president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, Thierry Beaudet, was sealed in a matter of minutes by Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN). The far-right party deemed the man, close to reformist trade unions, too "insulting."

Will Le Pen be more lenient with Michel Barnier? Sixty days after the results of the legislative elections, on Wednesday evening Macron once again changed his tune to test the name of the former European commissioner. Does the LR politician – defeated in the right-wing primary for the 2022 presidential election – have a sufficiently unifying profile to not be toppled by a motion of no confidence in the Assemblée Nationale as soon as he is appointed? The Elysée wants to know for sure.

So Macron resumed his marathon of consultations. According to the Elysée, Le Pen was to have her voice heard, like the other party and group leaders in the Assemblée Nationale, on the advisability of appointing the former Brexit negotiator to the role.

Does Le Pen remember that Barnier accused her in 2022 of wanting to lead the country to "national shrinkage"? Or does she prefer to remember that he has, in the past, promised a referendum on immigration, like her party? The far-right leader's opinion counts double in the eyes of the Elysée. "Marine Le Pen gives the kiss of death to all sides. The Rassemblement National has 142 seats [including its allies], so we'll have to make do," said Senator Hervé Marseille, a Macron ally.

A pariah in the July 7 legislative elections, where the spirit of the "republican front" to block the far right was rekindled, the RN has now taken on the role of kingmaker. "What a disgrace!," commented David Djaïz, former rapporteur for the president's National Council for Refoundation, on X. Paris MP Astrid Panosyan, of Macron's Renaissance party, added on X, "I share this same questioning: from the much-invoked 'republican front,' we are now making the RN the chief [decider] of a future PM."

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