Far right alert as France goes to the polls

Today France will be voting in the first round of snap parliamentary elections which are sending shockwaves across Europe. 

The results could possibly accelerate a global shift to the right and weaken the ruling centrist coalition in the EU. 

The latest polls are showing the far-right National Rally and its right-wing allies in the lead with around 36% of the vote, the left wing New Popular Front trailing at 29% and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in a humiliating third place at 21%. The outcome of the election will probably remain unknown till next week’s second round. 

But while in all previous elections, voters from across the political spectrum have rallied against the far right, this will probably not be the case this time round due to the inroads made by National Rally among conservative voters who previously backed the centre right Republicans. The embattled leader of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, broke with tradition earlier this month to back the National Rally’s bid to power. 

This suggests President Emmanuel Macron’s gamble to call an immediate election after his party’s debacle in the European Parliament election and turn it into a stark choice between his centrist ‘together’ movement and the far right has not paid off. A quickly assembled coalition of socialist, communist and green parties has emerged as the main alternative to the far right.   

The election will be a major test for Marine Le Pen’s ‘de-demonisation’ strategy which saw the party  widening  its appeal by abandoning her father (and party founder) Jean Marie Le Pen thuggish antics and presenting the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella as the party’s poster boy candidate for prime minister, without diluting the party’s anti-immigrant and overtly nationalistic platform. 

The far-right paradox 

Maria Pisani, a human rights activist and academic is sceptical of the de-demonisation strategy, noting that the National Rally’s platform is “unapologetically anti-immigrant and far right”. Its values remain antithetical to European values like human rights, she says. 

“The fact that we are talking of a possible far right victory in one of Europe’s biggest economies speaks volumes on the dire times we live in... this was unimaginable just a decade ago,” she notes. 

She adds that the party’s “fetish” for the nation state is paradoxical in a world transformed by neo liberal globalisation. 

“They try to give the impression that by voting for them people can regain control over their lives but what they are offering is not actual control but an illusion of being in control,” Pisani says. 

The only way through which people can have control over corporations, she adds, is through greater international cooperation on planetary issues like climate change. 

Pisani also fears that migrants are once again being used as a scapegoat for problems created by neo liberalism for which the far right does not have answers.  

She also notes that the EU’s green new deal and measures aimed at addressing climate change have joined immigration as the bête noire of the right. 

“This is paradoxical especially when one considers that climate change is one of the reasons contributing to forced migration from regions suffering the brunt of climate change,” she says. 

Pisani is apprehensive on the global impact of a far-right victory in France. “This is not happening in a vacuum especially when one considers the increased likelihood of a Trump victory in the USA.” 

This right-wing drift is bound to have implications on major decisions on climate change and the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

The far right’s inroads among centrist voters 

Nationalist MP and former minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, while critical of the National Rally’s anti-immigrant drift, is less dismissive of Jordan Bardella’s inroads among moderate voters who traditionally voted for the centre-right. 

He thinks that Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are appealing to voters who reject unrestrained laissez faire economics, thus occupying a niche vacated by the political centre which has been too keen on embracing the market. 

But Mifsud Bonnici is still concerned by Le Pen’s divisive message. “The question remains; is this a convenient make over or a move to a more social conscious and moderate right?” 

He describes Macron’s decision to call snap elections in the aftermath of the European election as a “rushed” one which is likely to backfire on the political centre. “The gamble has failed as instead of affirming the strength of the political centre it has polarised the electorate between two strong blocks: A right wing one which includes far right elements and a left wing one which includes the far left.” 

But he does not exclude that in a hung parliament, the traditional parties of the centre left (the socialists) and the centre right (the republicans) may reclaim their autonomy and create a new centrist alignment. 

He also notes that Macron’s presidency is becoming increasingly chaotic adding that even some of Macron’s lieutenants who have ambitions of their own are now considering the President’s brand toxic. 

“The decline had started even before his 2022 victory over Le Pen, which was narrower than that in 2017, but now we have entered a phase of accelerated decline,” Mifsud Bonnici says. 

He also believes that the National Rally is also successfully courting the Catholic traditionalist vote alienated by Macron’s decision to entrench abortion rights in the French constitution, even if Marine Le Pen herself has threaded carefully on this issue not to alienate more liberal voters. In fact, Le Pen had voted in favour of the constitutional change proposed by Macron while arguing that it was unnecessary. 

The most crucial post war election 

Author and broadcaster Charles Xuereb, describes today’s election as one of the most crucial post-war elections in French history  which could have “extremely tough” implications and may even produce a hung parliament.  

He also sees a risk that the result could dent Macron’s stature on the European stage especially if he is forced to consider cohabitation with the extreme right. 

But he also notes that Macron will still be President until 2027 even if his party loses. 

“Certainly, it is the personal relation between the two that determines the success of cohabitation... the president has room to manoeuvre to oppose the prime minister, without going too far,” Xuereb says, quoting legal expert Didier Maus, in Le Figaro this week.  

Xuereb also thinks that when calling a snap election, Macron was also banking on the feel good atmosphere in Paris, with the Tour de France starting yesterday, the possibility of France’s Euro football team advancing to reach the finals on 14 July, which is French National Day, and the upcoming windfall of the Olympic Games in less than a month. 

He also notes growing apprehension on the electoral promises of both the far right and the far left. Bardella is  promising to immediately lower the level of VAT on energy bills and fuel, concede tax breaks, to raise salaries by 10% and reverse Macron’s pension reform.  

“Details on financial arrangements, however, remain vague,” Xuereb says.  

But according to Xuereb the  most contentious proposal made by the National Rally is abolishing the right to French nationality for those born to foreign parents on French soil. 

But even the left-wing  New Popular Front is creating shockwaves by promising to  raise the minimum wage by 13%, bring back the wealth tax, cap energy prices and reverse pensions to start at 60 down from 66, as legislated recently.  

“The business lobby exclaimed that this is madness, even when compared to NF’s proposals,” Xuereb says. 

But he also sees signs of hope for the embattled French President. “Last Thursday there was a huge demonstration for Liberté! in Paris attended by many NGOs, including women’s, anti-racist and ecological movements, and this offers a ray of hope for Macron.” 

The demonstrators warned that the extreme right would govern by fear and encouraged the public not to abstain, using the slogan Nous, on vote!”  

But surveys, “which could go wrong, appear to show that voters have forgotten Macron’s attainments when inflation and joblessness as well as energy bills during the pandemic were brought down”. 

The French electoral system explained 

Today the French will be electing the members of the national assembly and will not be electing a new President.  

Emmanuel Macron whose term will expire in 2027 will remain in charge of national security and foreign policy.   

He will also have the power to name the next prime minister but crucially the latter will also have to enjoy a majority in the national assembly.   

The outcome of the election will not be determined today because French elections are determined in two rounds of voting.   

Today French voters will mark their preferred candidate contesting their constituency with an “X”. Those candidates who win 50% or more of the vote are immediately elected. But in those constituencies were none of the candidates manage to garner such a majority, the top two candidates and any other candidate who got the support of at least 12.5% of registered voters will go to a second ballot due on 7 July. The candidate with the most votes in the second round  will become a member of parliament. The system is meant to favour mainstream parties who enjoy broad support. 

In past elections it also meant that parties from the left to the centre right would unite to block the election of the far right to parliament. But this seems more unlikely in this election, in which a significant part of the centre-right Republicans including party leader Ciotti are backing Bardella’s party.