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FRENCH ELECTIONS

Far-right scents power as tense France ready for snap vote

A divided France braced Saturday for high-stakes parliamentary elections that could see the anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic party of Marine Le Pen sweep to power in a historic first.

Published: 29 June 2024 08:40 CEST
Far-right scents power as tense France ready for snap vote
Michele Martinez, candidate for the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) holds a campaign leaflet in Collioure, southern France. Photo: Matthieu RONDEL/AFP.

The candidates formally ended their frantic campaigns at midnight Friday, with political activity banned until Sunday’s first round of voting.

Most polls show that Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) is on course to win the largest number of National Assembly seats, though it remains unclear if the party will secure an outright majority.

A high turnout is predicted and final opinion polls have given the RN between 35 percent and 37 percent of the vote, against 27.5-29 percent for the left wing New Popular Front alliance and 20-21 percent for President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp.

That would put France on course for political chaos and confusion with a hung parliament, said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe head at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy.

READ ALSO: OPINION: When the mask slips, Le Pen’s party reveals its fundamental racism

“There is no precedent in recent French politics for such an impasse,” Rahman said.

Macron’s decision to call snap elections after the RN’s runaway victory in European Parliament elections this month stunned friends and foes and sparked uncertainty in Europe’s second-biggest economy.

The Paris stock exchange suffered its biggest monthly decline in two years in June, dropping by 6.4 percent.

In an editorial, French daily Le Monde said it was time to mobilise against the far-right.

“Yielding any power to it means nothing less than taking the risk of seeing everything that has been built and conquered over more than two and a half centuries gradually being undone,” it said.

‘Racism and anti-Semitism’

Brice Teinturier, head of the Ipsos polling firm, said there were two tendancies coming out of the campaign.

“One is a dynamic of hope” with left wing and RN supporters believing that “there can be a change”.

But Teinturier also highlighted “the negative politicisation, the fear, the dread caused by the RN and in a part of the electorate by the France Unbowed and the coalition of the left”.

Macron apparently hoped to catch political opponents off guard by presenting voters with a crucial choice about France’s future, but observers say he might have lost his gamble.

Many have pointed to a spike in hate speech, intolerance and racism during the charged campaign. A video of two RN supporters verbally assaulting a black woman has gone viral in recent days.

Speaking on the sidelines of a European summit in Brussels late Thursday, Macron deplored “racism or anti-Semitism”.

Support for Macron’s centrist camp collapsed during the campaign, while left-wing parties put their bickering aside and to form the New Popular Front, in a nod to an alliance founded in 1936 to combat fascism.

Support for the far-right has surged, with analysts saying Le Pen’s years-long efforts to clean up the image of a party co-founded by a former Waffen SS member have paid off.

“If we come to power, we’ll be able to demonstrate to the French people that we’ll keep our promises,” Le Pen wrote on X, vowing to bolster purchasing power and “curb insecurity and immigration”.

Under Macron, France has been one of Ukraine’s main Western backers since Russia invaded in February 2022.

But Le Pen and her 28-year-old lieutenant, party chief Jordan Bardella, have said they would scale down French support for Ukraine, by ruling out the sending of ground troops and long-range missiles.

Le Pen has ratcheted up tensions further by saying that the president’s commander-in-chief title was purely “honorific”.

Power-sharing

If the far-right obtains an absolute majority after the second round of voting on July 7, Bardella could become prime minister in a tense “cohabitation” with Macron.

His party’s path to victory could be blocked if the left and centre-right join forces against the RN in the second round.

A defiant Macron has stood by his decision to call the elections, while warning voters that a win by the far-right or hard left could spark a “civil war” in France.

He has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his second term until 2027, no matter which party wins the legislative contest.

READ ALSO: What’s at stake for foreigners in France if far-right Jordan Bardella becomes PM?

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ELECTIONS

French election breakdown: Panic, last-minute deals and echoes of Vichy

From last-minute candidate withdrawals to far-right seat projections, via the Paris paradox and echoes of Vichy - here's all the latest from the campaign trail as we head into the second round of voting in France's snap parliamentary elections.

Published: 3 July 2024 09:19 CEST
French election breakdown: Panic, last-minute deals and echoes of Vichy

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

Onwards to round two

It’s hard to believe but just one month ago we had no inkling that a French election was even on the horizon. 

A lot has happened since then, including the first round of voting on Sunday, June 30th, which delivered the predicted but nonetheless shocking win for the far-right Rassemblement National.

Now we are looking ahead to the second round of voting on Sunday which will deliver the final verdict.

There seems little doubt among the (usually very accurate) French pollsters that RN will become the biggest party in the parliament – the only question is whether they will get enough seats to form an absolute majority. 

Listen to the team from The Local discuss the election latest on the Talking France podcast – download here or listen on the link below

Three’s a crowd

It’s all been about triangulaires this week, so at least we have learned a new French word.

In a political context, triangulaire means a three-person contest in July 7th’s second round of voting. In previous elections there have just been a handful of these (in the 2022 parliamentary elections there were eight three-person run-offs, almost all the rest were two-person or duels), which is why they have not loomed large in election discussions before.

In these elections though, the high turnout combined with a lack of candidates from smaller parties (due to the last-minute announcement) produced an unusually high number of triangulaires – more than 300 in fact.

It quickly became apparent that the most effective way to block the rise of the far-right would be for the third-placed centrist or left candidates in a three-way race to withdraw in order to avoid splitting the anti- far right vote.

So a no brainer, right?

Unfortunately not. Although more than 200 candidates ultimately did withdraw in order to faire un barrage (create a roadblock) for the far-right, others did not and the centrist leaders in particular seemed to find it difficult to simply say that everything possible should be done to counter the rise of the far-right.

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, centrist leader François Bayrou and Macron’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire were reportedly among the most reluctant to faire le barrage.

Many of the candidates who did withdraw said: “Nous pouvons nous remettre d’une défaite, mais pas d’un déshonneur” (we can recover from defeat, but not dishonour), illustrating how this election has gone gone way beyond the normal political to-and-fro. 

Paris v France

One thing this election has underscored is the difference between Paris and much of the rest of France – Rassemblement National has extremely weak support in the capital and its suburbs and many of the election maps show Paris as an island of red among the RN blue.

Paris is different from much of the rest of France in lots of ways – and it’s a long-standing point of irritation for many French people that foreigners generalise things that only happen in Paris as being ‘typically French’.

But the political difference is very striking – and in fact much of the RN vote is driven by French voters feeling forgotten, ignored or patronised by decision-makers in Paris.

I was talking this week to a young French woman of Algerian heritage who said that after seeing the election maps she now feels frightened to go outside the Paris region – a comment I found absolutely heartbreaking.

Echoes from history

I’ve heard a lot of English language media use the comparison that a Le Pen government would be the first far-right government in France since World War II.

This is technically correct – the collaborationist Vichy government that was in power during the Nazi occupation was undoubtedly far-right and in some instances went even further than the Germans demanded with their anti-Semitic actions. There were also extremely socially conservative when it came to domestic policy – abortion became a capital crime punished by death by guillotine (before the war it had been illegal but the penalty was imprisonment or a fine).

There is one fairly crucial difference though – the French people did not choose them. The Vichy government wasn’t democratically elected, it was imposed on the people after the fall of France in 1940.

A Le Pen government would be the first time in France’s history that the people elected a far-right government. 

How to follow all the French election news this weekend

You can follow all the latest election news HERE or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

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