What will be remembered of Sunday, November 12, 2023? While the demonstration "for the Republic and against anti-Semitism", initiated by President of the Assemblée Nationale Yaël Braun-Pivet and President of the Sénat Gérard Larcher, was intended to be apolitical and civic-minded, it nonetheless revealed multiple political implications that will leave deep traces.

The main lesson is that it constitutes a marked before-and-after moment for the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). The members of Marine Le Pen's party turned out in large numbers, even though they were isolated and under pressure.

More than 30 years after the large demonstration against anti-Semitism – organized the day after the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Carpentras, southern France, that was blamed on four neo-Nazis – this shift is more like a Copernican revolution. "A glass ceiling has exploded," decried the historian Grégoire Kauffmann in an interview in Le Monde on Sunday morning, claiming that the November 12 demonstration will be remembered as a key moment in the history of the far-right party and consecrates a profound recomposition of the political game.

Some are tempted to see the controversy that accompanied the RN's participation, and its symbolic relegation to the back of the procession, as a sign that it remains inseparable from its toxic past. That would be a meager reassurance. Even if she has kept a low profile, Le Pen can already reap political rewards. Her party has taken a further step in the process of "de-demonization" she initiated, generating a new ratchet effect. On Sunday evening, the German newspaper Der Spiegel published a photo of the imposing RN delegation, under a chilling headline: "The day Marine Le Pen became eligible for the Jews."

Le Pen's presence endorsed

Gone are the days of the "Republican front" to beat the far right in elections and the "sanitary cordon" to stay as far away from its members in any circumstances. The RN's presence at the demonstration was endorsed without batting an eyelid by several political leaders, including those in the governing coalition.

On Sunday evening on BFM-TV, former prime minister Edouard Philippe said he had "taken note" of the RN's change of tune on anti-Semitism. That same morning, in Le Journal du Dimanche, Nicolas Sarkozy said he did not understand the "indignation at the presence of the RN," which he said "wished to make a break with its nauseating past." Le Pen couldn't have asked for more.

These new positions are part of the party's slow process of mainstreaming, fueled by some of the political class, including President Emmanuel Macron himself, who has called for an end to the use of "historical and moral arguments" to combat the RN, while one of his ministers, Gérald Darmanin, takes up the talking points of the far right – the "link" between immigration and delinquency, for example – and criticizes Le Pen for her "softness."

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