The Rassemblement National’s Missing Link to Power

In the presidential race, Marine Le Pen and her party, the Rassemblement National (RN), are not going it alone. Alongside them since 2024 is a proven and powerful ally: the small Union des Droites pour la République (UDR) party. In the quest for power, it brings the respectability and openness that the national right might otherwise lack.

When Éric Ciotti took the stage last weekend at his rally in southern France, he did more than express his support for Le Pen ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The UDR president also presented her with a roadmap: some 15 proposals intended to shape the platform that the RN will champion in the presidential campaign.

Pension reform, lower taxes on estates and gifts and a sweeping administrative reorganization: Ciotti intends to inject a dose of economic liberalism into a party whose instincts remain largely statist.

This initiative speaks volumes about the role the UDR is gradually playing in the RN’s strategy to seize power. Born out of a dramatic break with the traditional right in 2024, Éric Ciotti’s party has become much more than an electoral ally: it could be one of the key factors enabling the RN to turn a presidential victory into genuine governing power.

A Party Born of a Break

The UDR emerged amid the political upheaval triggered by Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly in June 2024. Then-chairman of Les Républicains (LR), Éric Ciotti caused a political earthquake by announcing an alliance with the RN, against the wishes of virtually his entire party.

The idea was to put an end to the cordon sanitaire that had separated the traditional right from the far right for decades and to view a union of the right as the only strategy capable of bringing it back to power.

What seemed at the time to be a personal gamble is now becoming a structural shift within the French right. As a small party, the UDR has little ability to influence the political debate on its own. By aligning with the RN, it benefits from the attention focused on France’s largest party. In return, it provides the RN with something it struggles to achieve on its own: a form of institutional respectability.

The Bridge to the Traditional Right

The RN has made significant gains at the polls, but a portion of the right-wing electorate continues to view a vote for the RN as a leap into the unknown. For these voters, a Le Pen victory – now a very real possibility – is not enough: they want to know whether her party is capable of governing.

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In this regard, the UDR plays a strategic role. Its elected officials come from the Republican right. They are familiar with the institutions, local government and the workings of Parliament, some of them having spent many years navigating them. They do not carry the same political baggage as some of the RN’s long-standing leaders.

This bridge is all the more important as the traditional right-wing electorate is gradually moving closer to the RN. A growing number of voters who still identify with LR are now considering voting for the RN – or have already done so. The UDR helps make this shift less radical.

Its new figures play an important role in this normalization. Charles Alloncle, for example, has made a name for himself through his offensive against public broadcasting. Guilhem Carayon, son of MP Bernard Carayon – who also switched from LR to the UDR – embodies a younger generation of leaders coming directly from the traditional right, after serving as head of LR’s youth movement.

These profiles help reshape the coalition’s image: the RN may no longer appear as an isolated force, but rather as the center of gravity of a broader right, capable of bringing together experienced figures who can reassure conservative voters.

A Laboratory for Liberal Ideas

The UDR’s other function is programmatic. Historically, the RN is not a liberal party. Le Pen remains committed to a protective and interventionist conception of the state, to defending the welfare state and to maintaining a strong public presence in the economy. Jordan Bardella had attempted to strike a balance between this tradition and a pro-business, tax-cutting platform, but Le Pen’s return has sidelined this approach.

Éric Ciotti intends to fill this space. The proposals presented recently are characteristic of the classic liberal-conservative repertoire: pension reform, a lower tax burden, administrative simplification, cuts to the number of government agencies and public bodies, a reorganization of local government and lower taxes on inheritances and transfers.

This does not, however, mean turning Le Pen into a French Margaret Thatcher. The strategic interest is more subtle: to allow the RN to incorporate a dose of economic liberalism without sacrificing its identity. The alliance with Ciotti thus makes it possible to outsource parts of the platform that, if adopted internally, would arouse the mistrust of the party’s traditional pillars.

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The RN must now convince entrepreneurs, executives, independent professionals, affluent retirees and traditional conservative voters that a Le Pen presidency would not necessarily mean economic uncertainty. In this strategy, the UDR can serve as a guarantee.

A Battle Already Underway on the French Right

This role becomes all the more important as the RN begins to face competition from its own right flank. Two figures in particular embody this offensive: Sarah Knafo and David Lisnard.

Sarah Knafo, Éric Zemmour’s partner and a Reconquête MEP, is now a rising star of the identitarian right, seeking to combine cultural conservatism with economic liberalism. She could even enter the race in place of her mentor, who is too divisive. Her campaign against taxes and public spending allows her to occupy ground that the RN has left partly open.

David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes and president of the Association of Mayors of France, represents a different form of competition. He presents himself as an unapologetic liberal and a fierce critic of bureaucracy and the tax burden. Now a declared presidential candidate, he, too, seeks to unite the various factions of the right around a more liberal political platform.

Both can attack the RN on a potential weakness: its difficulty in reconciling its radical rhetoric with the economic expectations of a more affluent and entrepreneurial right-wing electorate. The UDR allows the RN to occupy this ground before its competitors do.

Reconquête MEP Sarah Knafo, Sophie de Menthon, president of the ETHIC business movement, and Cannes Mayor David Lisnard, president of the Association of Mayors of France. Photo: YouTube

The Italian Precedent

Giorgia Meloni did not come to power by asking right-wing voters to choose between the radical right and the respectable right. She built a coalition capable of bringing together several conservative traditions, from Fratelli d’Italia to Forza Italia and the Lega.

This ability to bring together different political traditions allowed Meloni to maintain a strong identity while reassuring a broader electorate. The RN might seek to reproduce this model in France.

The German example, by contrast, illustrates the problem to be avoided. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become a major electoral force, but the traditional right’s cordon sanitaire still bars it from power. It can win elections without having a coalition credible enough to govern, owing to a lack of defections or splits from the Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU).

The RN wants to avoid this situation. Its alliance with the UDR is therefore of major strategic importance. If Le Pen succeeds in combining the RN’s electoral strength, the UDR’s institutional backing and a dose of economic liberalism credible enough to reassure right-wing voters, the alliance could resolve one of the RN’s remaining problems and open the door to power.