Jordan Bardella knows what Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne's office looks like, on the second floor of Hôtel de Matignon. He visited it after the 2022 elections, in the company of Marine Le Pen, who quipped in front of the dumbfounded prime minister: "Jordan, it'll be for you!" A year and a half later, with the help of a government crisis, he can already picture himself there. After the Assemblée National's blunt rejection on Monday, December 11, of the government's immigration bill, Bardella, who is president of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), once again called for the chamber's dissolution and early elections.

It's a typical reflex on the far right. Bardella and Le Pen had already called for a return to the polls in October – but also in April and November 2022, May 2020, March 2019, December 2018, February 2015, summer 2014, April and November 2013... "There's a bravado aspect that fits with the imaginary of the Front National [FN, former name of the Rassemblement National], which holds that the people don't lie and that we must return to them when a crisis arises," said Frédéric Dabi, director general of the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP). He pointed out that the FN's co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of Marine Le Pen, had "countlessly" called for early elections and presidents to resign.

Does the RN believe it will work this time? Le Pen didn't on October 29, on the France 3 TV channel, when she said that "Emmanuel Macron wouldn't want to give the floor back to the French, because he knows he'd come out weakened." Nor was there on Monday much enthusiasm for a winter election campaign among the party's MPs, who often say that they're tired of the heavy parliamentary workload. "The chances are slim, because a preponderant part of the state and the senior administration don't want it," said Jean-Philippe Tanguy, deputy president of the RN group in the Assemblée, and one of the few convinced that the party would emerge with a majority from early elections.

But the goal is to mobilize party members, to keep alive the narrative of a supposed inevitable victory and ability to exercise power. "When the embers are burning, you have to blow on them," continued Tanguy. "For our voters, seeing that the leaders are confident, that the commentators are generating a certain atmosphere, is part of psychological warfare. The hope of victory breeds victory."

Above all, the RN knows it can run a campaign similar to that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the 2022 legislative elections, when he asked voters to "elect him prime minister." For the first time in its history, stressed Dabi, the far right "has a real number two" in Bardella. "One can imagine the photos of RN candidates for the legislative elections including Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella," he said.

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