A stop to the attempt to “demonize” the National Group. The party will not be able to shed its far-right label with a snap of its fingers. The Council of State rejected a request from the party in this regard this Thursday, according to information from the Public Senate confirmed by BFMTV.com.
The National Group had urgently gone to the Council of State to try to suspend a circular from the Ministry of the Interior on the attribution of political nuances to the candidates for the senatorial elections next Sunday. The prefects of the departments, in charge of assigning these nuances according to “a set of clues”, classify the candidates according to six blocks: extreme left, left, others, center, right, extreme right.
“The attribution of political nuances is an essential prerequisite for electoral analysis and the readability of electoral results for citizens,” is explained in the circular of August 16, 2023, consulted by BFMTV.com.
It should be noted that candidates put forward or supported by Marine Le Pen’s party must be classified within the “far-right” bloc. Which does not please the RN. And this has been happening for several decades: Jean-Marie Le Pen had threatened, in 1996, to take legal action against the media that used this far-right term against them, notes Mediapart. Marine Le Pen made the same threat upon her arrival at the head of the party.
“It undermines the sincerity of the vote”
This time, the former National Front considered that this classification “violates the principle of equality”, “highlights a difference in treatment between political movements” and “undermines the sincerity of the vote.” For them, this is “a manifest error of assessment” that justifies the invalidation of this circular, whose “legality” they question.
During the hearing this Thursday morning, one of the party’s lawyers, Wallerand de Saint-Just, stated that such categorization is “pejorative, if not offensive,” notes Mediapart. “We put a lot of things in this box, people who have committed horrible crimes…” he stressed.
But this did not convince the judges. The latter considered that in the “state of the investigation”, there is no [des moyens invoqués] “It is not likely to raise serious doubts about the legality of the impugned circular.” Therefore, the National Rally was dismissed.
Source: BFM TV
