Donald Trump is no longer the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party's embarrassing friend. Re-elected as president of the United States, he is no longer the firebrand candidate – and possible sore loser – with whom it had seemed risky to associate, just 24 hours earlier. On the morning of Wednesday, November 6, after the rank-and-file of far-right leader Marine Le Pen's party had trembled with enthusiasm, all night long, before the scenario of the former pariah's clear victory, the RN's lawmakers were able to freely express their satisfaction: Trump was, once again, warmly praised by the mass of far-right elected representatives, who saw his victory as revenge against "woke-ism" and the media – including in France. These celebrations could come back to haunt the RN if Trump implements his platform, which includes raising tariffs on European products and stopping aid to Ukraine.

"What a lesson for all those messy Democrats," wrote Louis Aliot, RN vice president on X, on Wednesday, hailing Trump's victory – that of a man who still contests his 2020 electoral defeat has been indicted for having attempted to overturn election results in the state of Georgia, as well as for trying to overturn the results of the presidential election on January 6, 2021, the day the Capitol was attacked. At a meeting of the Assemblée Nationale's foreign affairs committee, on Wednesday morning, RN lawmaker Alexis Jolly gave a lengthy speech praising Trump's victory: According to him, it represented the victory of "public policies closer to the day-to-day concerns of American citizens: immigration, security, reindustrialization."

The far-right MPs have returned to their natural positions, which had never been left by the most controversial far-right figures – Eric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal – as well as Eric Ciotti. On Wednesday, Ciotti, the former head of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party, now Le Pen's minority coalition ally, was the first French politician to rejoice at Trump's victory, in a post on X. Calling his election "full of hope for the US, (...) for the world (...) and for France," Ciotti then shot a video, featuring a red "Make America Great Again" cap, in which he seized on Trump and Le Pen's rhetoric of a man who stood up to "the media system" – though he was backed by the country's leading news channel (Fox News) and the owner of the social media platform X (Elon Musk).

You have 41.63% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.