The France of the National Rally: Towards a Resolution of the France’s Far-Right Contagion Controversy
The people’s revenge against the elites is in the media and politics. “I am of those who have voted for everyone. They lied to us about immigration being for the country.
At the election celebration in Le Pen’s stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, 41-year-old Edouard Guillebot said the far right’s success had been a long time coming.
People don’t understand that this will hurt us for a long time. This is a France of hate that is growing, not a France of solidarity and union,” said Cynthia Fefoheio, a 19-year-old political science student who was among thousands of people who gathered Sunday night at Paris’ République plaza to protest the National Rally.
Many voters are frustrated with inflation and other economic concerns, as well as with Macron. The National Rally tapped that discontent, notably via online platforms such as TikTok. It campaigned heavily on the rising cost of living and immigration. The campaign was disrupted by hate speech.
Already on Sunday night, the far-right’s opponents were strategizing how to concentrate votes against the National Rally in round two, planning in some districts to pull their candidates out to increase the chances of another candidate beating a far-right rival.
But it might also fall short and no single bloc may end up with a clear majority, polling agencies projected. The voting system makes it difficult for predictions.
Some polling agency projections indicated that in a best-case scenario for the far right, the National Rally and its allies could collectively clear the bar of 289 seats needed for a secure majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
The National Rally’s promise to increase voters’ spending power without providing details on how it will pay for it could scare off financial markets in Europe, as well as its plans to roll back the pension reforms.
The polls project that the National Rally could get enough votes to obtain a majority in France’s 577-seat National Assembly. If it does, Le Pen wants Jordan Bardella to become prime minister.
The results showed a lot of far-right successes. Six candidates from the National Rally will not have to face a second-round vote after securing more than half of the votes in their districts on Sunday. National Rally candidates were also ahead in all of the region’s six other districts heading into round two.
The National Rally hasn’t been there yet. With another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remains uncertain.
The Phenomenology of the National Rally: Putting a Stop to Extremism to the Protest in the French Parliament, As Revised by Jordan Bardella
Securing a parliamentary majority would enable National Rally leader Marine Le Pen to install her 28-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister and would crown her yearslong rebranding effort to make her party less repellent to mainstream voters. She inherited the party, then called the National Front, from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has multiple convictions for racist and antisemitic hate speech.
French polling agencies’ projections put Macron’s grouping of centrist parties a distant third in the first-round ballot, behind both the National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties that joined forces to keep it from winning power.
President Macron shocked much of France and the world by dissolving parliament and calling what’s known as a snap election after the National Rally came first in June 9 elections for France’s seats in European Parliament. He said he wanted to give the French a chance “to say no to extremes.”
Speaking to cameras after first-round results came in Sunday evening, Bardella pledged to be “the prime minister for all the people of France … respectful of opposition, open to dialogue and concerned at all times with the unity of the people.”
Yet there is still a chance that no party wins a majority in the National Assembly — known as a hung parliament. Next year,Macron might call for another election.
It isn’t just the National Rally that beat Macron. Some voters worry about the second place left-wing New Popular Front. It includes the France Unbowed party led by firebrand former journalist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose sharp criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza has caused some Jewish and other voters to say they voted for Le Pen’s party instead — a remarkable shift for the National Rally once notorious for its founder’s antisemitic convictions.
The high turnout makes the election complicated. Because of the rules deciding how candidates qualify for the second round, there is a significant number of races this election involving three, even four candidates: more than 300, in fact.
That makes it possible for parties that placed second and third in round one — like that left-wing coalition and Macron’s own Ensemble alliance — to strike deals with each other, have one candidate step aside and call on their voters to cast a ballot for the other allied party.
“Our objective is clear: stopping the National Rally from having an absolute majority in the second round, from dominating the National Assembly and from governing the country with its disastrous project,” French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on social media.
Many countries are watching the events in France and many are alarmed by what is happening.
The Le Soir newspaper in Belgium accuses the president of abandoning the ballot box to legitimize the far right, which he was far from protecting against. German newsmagazine Der Spiegel asks: “Why is Emmanuel Macron handing the country over to the far right?”
In Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda, the most-read article was about the election, however the position of the National Rally on the Russian-Ukrainian war is unknown. While the party currently claims it will assist Ukraine in defending itself against Russian forces, it has also established red lines, such as not giving Ukraine long-range weaponry.”
