IPresident Emmanuel Macron still held out hope that his decision to gift Marine Le Pen early parliamentary elections would pay off, but that hope has now been surely dashed. Following last month’s humiliation in the European polls, Macron foolishly gambled that historic levels of support for Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) would evaporate as protesting voters faced the prospect of a far-right government for the first time since the war. So how did it happen?
Thanks to the high turnout in the first round on Sunday, the RN comfortably won first place with 33.1% of the vote, almost two points higher than three weeks ago. Incidentally, this was the first time that a party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen had broken the 20% barrier in a parliamentary election. The New Popular Front (NPF), a hastily formed coalition of left-wing forces, won 28% of the vote. Macron’s centrist coalition “Together” finished third with 20.8%. Thus, with his arrogance and stupidity, Macron seems to have blown his power base in parliament, transformed himself into the most incompetent lame-duck president, and given Le Pen’s young protégé Jordan Bardella a fair chance of becoming the next French prime minister.
The stakes are now very high ahead of the second round of voting on July 7. In recent years, Le Pen has skillfully rebranded her father’s party, distancing it from its anti-Semitic and neo-fascist roots and targeting blue-collar discontent in economically disadvantaged areas. During the current election campaign, Bardella has Back of the Line About massive, market-shaking spending pledges. But regardless of such opportunistic positions, the party’s deep-rooted authoritarian and xenophobic ethos – its historic raison d’être – remains unchanged.
In a country with one of the largest ethnic minority populations in Europe, plans to exclude dual nationals from sensitive professions are evidence of a political project to marginalize and stigmatize non-white French-born citizens. Proposed laws to combat Islamist ideology and a proposed ban on wearing headscarves in public places reveal the extent to which Islamophobia drives an exclusionary cultural agenda. The idea of new legal protections for the police gives a dark hint as to how such heavy-handed measures might be implemented.
More broadly, an RN-led government would seek to undermine EU values from within in the name of patriotism. As Alice Weidel, co-chair of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, put it: Greeted He said he accepted Sunday’s election results “with admiration and respect” and noted that Le Pen’s party was “of course an exemplary party.”
The worst may yet be averted because France’s two-round voting system allows candidates to drop out and voters to form a single group to counter the far right. This tradition of a strong “Republican Front” has been fading in recent parliamentary elections. It needs to be revived quickly to ensure that the RN does not win an absolute majority in the second round, even if it means more misery for the president’s centrist coalition. Macron, unlike some in his movement, said on Monday that he would not be able to vote in the second round. admit Although this was initially incorrect, Suggest A vote for the left-wing NPF could be just as dangerous as a vote for Le Pen.
Macron’s days of being able to divide and rule are over. Whatever the outcome six days from now, the RN is sure to consolidate its position as the leading force in French politics. With a faltering leader and a broad swath of mainstream voters, the challenge now is to minimise the damage. Never before has a party with a platform and instincts that compromise the republican values on which modern France was founded come so close to power. It must not be allowed to take power.
