After endorsing the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in the first days of the war, Le Pen last week criticized U.S. President Donald Trump over his “erratic war goals” and said Washington’s “mistake” in attacking Iran has destabilized energy markets, in an interview with France Inter radio.
Although Trump had initially reached out to Le Pen and the National Rally after taking office for a second term in January 2025, the party has increasingly seen Washington’s embrace as damaging to its prospects in a country where Trump remains broadly unpopular.
Party heavyweight Jean-Philippe Tanguy convened a press conference on Tuesday to highlight the National Rally’s proposed measures, including cuts to energy taxes and “the establishment of temporary margin control to ensure that oil companies, distributors and all other players in the oil industry do not pocket these tax cuts.”
He also criticized the French government for releasing part of France’s strategic oil reserves to avoid a supply crunch, a measure coordinated with other G7 countries. France’s strategic reserves are managed “in practice to align with oil companies’ best interests,” Tanguy said.
The push for energy tax cuts and market control measures reflects the party’s longstanding strategy of positioning itself as the champion of the working class. But the fiscal costs of its proposals and its attacks on oil companies risk tarnishing its credentials on the economy and among the business community. That confidence will be crucial to winning over more centrist voters in the 2027 presidential election.
Tanguy’s push comes after Marine Le Pen last week accused the government of “behaving like a profiteer in a crisis,” noting its higher tax revenues linked to surging oil prices. The government has rejected tax cuts, saying they would aggravate France’s already-exorbitant budget deficit. The country is forecasted to overspend its 2026 revenues by the equivalent of around 5 percent of GDP.