Marine Le Pen has often posed as the sole voice of the ignored French people — and the enemy of the political establishment of “either left or right.” Yet if mainstream media often lazily label her a “populist,” this week Le Pen took another step into the institutional mainstream. Responding to the first policy speech by new prime minister Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative, she insisted that he should have his “chance to govern.” Le Pen committed not to vote out former European Union official Barnier’s minority government, saying she rejected the “childish posturing” of those on the Left who sought to immediately force Emmanuel Macron’s pick from office. As she put it, “More than ever, we want to be a constructive force, and a possible new government as soon as possible.”

For the next several months, such tolerance should be enough to keep Barnier in office. His Républicains are today France’s fifth-largest party, and even in coalition with Macron’s allies, they are dozens of seats short of a parliamentary majority. Macron nonetheless appointed Barnier to head the government and push through a budget (mooting a huge €40 billion in spending cuts for 2025), while facing down the coalition that did best in this summer’s snap election, the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP). Denied a chance to try and form a government, even the NFP’s more center-left elements were unwilling to join forces with Barnier, whose government will instead rely on Le Pen’s more or less passive consent. By declaring that she won’t join the NFP in a no-confidence vote, Le Pen can keep Barnier on a tight leash — while also showing her responsibility to middle-class voters and potential business allies.

Barnier’s government is surely among the most conservative in recent decades. His pick for interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, spent much of his career in the hard-right Mouvement pour la France and was explicitly chosen as a signal of the government’s firmness on “restoring order.” As France’s new “top cop,” Retailleau provoked controversy this weekend after he questioned whether the “rule of law” is truly “untouchable or sacred.” He later walked back the comments, though not his statement that France would benefit from a (currently unconstitutional) referendum on migration. On the political right, the idea that Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is singularly extreme — the kind of anathema that rallied left-wing and some centrist voters against it in July’s runoff elections — has clearly taken a knock. This week, after new economy minister Antoine Armand implied that Le Pen’s party does not belong to the “republican arc” of democratic parties that he would consult on the budget, Barnier slapped him down — even phoning Le Pen to reassure her.

The budget is just one area where Le Pen will exert pressure. Promising “order in the streets and in the public accounts,” her Rassemblement National aims to show itself ready to govern — and can now hope to extract concessions from Barnier, without being forced to take the blame for his tougher decisions. Le Pen’s declared “red lines” for tolerating his government include the call for a new immigration law in early 2025, the abandonment of the preferential visa regime for Algerians (a shift already mooted by a recent Macronite government), and an electoral reform offering a bonus for the largest single party, likely benefiting her own Rassemblement National. But with the government already in dispute internally over the need for tax increases to lower France’s budget deficit, and steep cuts expected, Le Pen insists rate increases must be compensated by moves to help the incomes of “modest households.” EU pressure on France’s deficit could provide a pretext for a more open conflict and finish off Le Pen’s tolerance of Barnier; her party insists Paris should seek a budget rebate from Brussels.

Fresh elections to break the parliamentary deadlock can’t be called until next June, and the next presidential contest isn’t expected till 2027. The Left may complain that after its relative success in this summer’s snap election, Macron denied the NFP parties the chance to govern; but for want of sufficient numbers in the National Assembly or genuinely mass social mobilization, they can hardly force the issue. Instead, we have returned to the situation where Le Pen’s party seems the more likely alternative government.

Her path to the presidency faces some hurdles, also given her latest legal troubles over the alleged misuse of EU funds, which could even prevent her from running again. But her camp today seems to have fresh momentum and a good chance of forcing another parliamentary election in less than a year’s time. After its strong advance among more middle-income groups in the 2024 election cycle, Le Pen’s “constructive” approach to Barnier seeks to show that her party does not risk a radical leap into the dark for savers, pensioners, and business, but a renewal of a right-wing bloc that they have seen before.

Recent events in the Netherlands, where technocrat Dick Schoof recently formed a government with far-right ministers and “emergency” anti-migrant policies, suggest how this convergence can work. So have cases like Italy and Finland, where postfascists dropped their anti-euro or NATO-critical positions and today combine tax cuts for business with nationalist identity politics. But there is a caveat. In France, both social conflict and its racialized edge are sharper than in these fellow EU member-states, and this alone makes the Rassemblement National more dangerous. Its steps toward power are a boon for police unions and already powerful authoritarian forces in the state, notably in the repression of illegal migration. To note that a future Le Pen government would draw on existing tools, built up also under Macron’s presidency, is not to deny that the authoritarian tendency could get faster, deeper, and worse. For now, a minority government dependent on Le Pen’s tolerance will show how much her party is already able to set the policy agenda.