After Months of Normalisation, Marine Le Pen Reactivates a Marker on the Veil

A television interview given by a senior Rassemblement National deputy has prompted Marine Le Pen to make a ban on the Islamic veil in public spaces a formally stated plank of her 2027 presidential campaign — a development that has laid bare internal tensions within the party while serving, by the party's own account, as a calculated signal to its core electorate.

Jean-Philippe Tanguy, the RN deputy for the Somme, raised the prospect of such a ban during an appearance on BFM television. Pressed on the matter the following Tuesday on franceinfo, he sought to temper the initial impression, declaring that "nobody is going to hunt down veiled women." He nonetheless confirmed that Marine Le Pen would defend a referendum on the question during the presidential campaign. "We have never stigmatised women who wear the veil," he said. "We are attacking the symbol of an ideology that has nothing to do with religion."

Marine Le Pen subsequently made the proposal her own, doing so in part by citing a statement by former prime minister Édouard Philippe, who had said it was necessary to "respect the law as it exists today." By responding publicly on that basis, she effectively granted the referendum proposal official status within her campaign.

A signal to the base

Party sources speaking to the political desk at France Télévisions said the timing was unplanned, with one figure suggesting that Tanguy had been compelled to respond because of "insistent questions" from the BFM journalist interviewing him. Gaëtan Dussausaye, the RN deputy for the Vosges, sought to minimise the episode, describing the veil ban as "one policy proposal among many." Yet the same party officials acknowledged a strategic benefit in having reset the news agenda. "It shows we are setting the pace of the campaign," one senior party figure told franceinfo. "Everyone is forced to position themselves relative to us."

Valérie Pécresse, the Les Républicains president of the Île-de-France region, appeared on franceinfo to denounce "a demagogic and impractical measure." Within the RN, the episode is also understood as an effort to reassure a core electorate after an autumn dominated by economic debate, including a candidates' exchange organised by the Medef employers' federation. "If we don't move on this subject, we send the signal that we won't move on anything, and our voters will say we are like the others," a party official confided. Julien Limongi, the RN deputy for Seine-et-Marne, offered a different framing, arguing that other parties adopting similar themes was itself evidence that "the findings we have been articulating for years have imposed themselves on public debate."

Internal divisions and historical precedent

The episode has reopened visible faultlines. Jordan Bardella, the RN president, struck a more cautious note on Monday, saying it was "not a question of putting in place a clothing police," while backing a referendum "during the five-year term on the question of Islamist ideology." Bardella has consistently maintained distance from the veil ban proposal. The departure of François Durvye, a liberal-leaning special adviser to the RN president who reportedly declined to defend Marine Le Pen's presidential programme — notably on pensions — has added further texture to the internal picture. Limongi sought to play down any split, insisting: "There is no divergence within the RN on this question. We are all in favour of the principle of a referendum allowing the French to pronounce themselves directly."

Historical precedent reinforces the complexity. During the 2022 presidential campaign, Le Pen appeared visibly shaken when confronted in the Vaucluse by an elderly veiled woman, and softened her position the following day — only to defend it in the televised run-off debate against Emmanuel Macron. Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, a professor of political communication at Sciences Po, observed to franceinfo that "after months of normalisation, Marine Le Pen is reactivating a marker that allows her to remind her core electorate of her existence." Erwan Lecœur, a political scientist specialising in the far right, suggested she could "always strategically retreat later, to negotiate a more unifying second-round image."

Polling backdrop

The broader political context has shifted since 2022. A CSA poll conducted in November 2025 for CNews, Europe 1 and Le Journal du dimanche found that 69 per cent of respondents favoured banning the Islamic veil in public spaces, with support considerably higher among right-wing and far-right voters than among those on the left. Jean-Yves Dormagen, a political scientist at the opinion research laboratory Cluster 17, noted that the proposal commands consensus among RN and Reconquête voters and wide support among centre-right voters, while attracting a "minority but significant" share of left-wing support, including among some La France Insoumise voters.

With eight months until the election, sources close to Bruno Retailleau's entourage suggest the RN's strategy of "radicality" is designed to engineer a run-off against Jean-Luc Mélenchon — a scenario which, according to polling cited in the source material, would favour Le Pen. The RN contests this reading, arguing that its stance on the veil sends a positive signal to Muslim voters who reject Islamist ideology. Communication expert Ariane Ahmadi, quoted by franceinfo, offered a blunter assessment: "We don't understand the RN's economic line. It needs to hit hard to remind people who it is."