France is poised to vote for a far-right government for the first time since the Second World War, as national sentiment appears to be turning sour towards President Emmanuel Macron’s brand of dominant centrism and lurching towards fierce anti-populism. -establishment. It’s a familiar story to anyone who watches the political drama in the sharply polarized US.
French anti-immigrant party Réunion National is outperforming the competition in opinion polls in the run-up to a two-round early legislative vote on Sunday and July 7. Macron dissolved the French Parliament and called early elections after his liberal Renaissance coalition was defeated by the National Rally in the European Parliament elections earlier this month.
Macron will remain president after snap elections, but the 46-year-old leader will have to select a prime minister from the ranks of whichever political group wins a majority in the National Assembly, France’s equivalent of the U.S. House. If the far right triumphs, Macron could enter the Paris Summer Olympics under a cloud of political embarrassment, humiliated by a tense power-sharing agreement.
Here’s a guide to the early elections, the key players vying for victory, and what the results could portend for the U.S. as the country looks ahead to November.
What led to this election?
Macron’s tenure has always been clouded by the rise of the far right.
He was elected to the French presidency in 2017 and re-elected in 2022, both times defeating Marine Le Pen, the face of the National Rally and daughter of the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, a fervent far-right politician who was notorious for his anti-political views. -Semitic and Islamophobic. Macron won handily in 2017 on a conventional pro-business platform, but his margin of victory was smaller five years later.
In recent years, Le Pen and her party have rallied voters against Macron’s presidency and what she sees as the West’s sociopolitical ills, including immigration, globalization and multiculturalism. Le Pen has advocated stricter limits on immigration, economic protectionism and closer ties between France and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The populist agitation of the National Meeting now appears to be bearing fruit. Le Pen’s party received twice as many votes as Macron’s centrists during the European Parliament elections held June 6-9. Macron’s coalition was so defeated that he immediately called early elections in a risky attempt to reassert his authority – and give voters the opportunity to declare which ideological path they wish to follow.
“I heard your message, your concerns, and I will not leave them unanswered,” Macron said in an address to the nation after the vote to elect lawmakers to the European Union’s 720-seat Parliament. “France needs a clear majority to act with serenity and harmony.” He said he was “confident” that voters “will make the right choice.”
Recent opinion polls measuring voting intentions showed the National Rally with a dominant lead, followed by the leftist Nova Frente Popular coalition. Macron’s liberal bloc came in third place.
The first round of voting will be held on Sunday. If a candidate receives the majority of votes in the first round, he wins the seat. For the remaining candidates who did not obtain a decisive majority, but who received the highest vote, a second round will be held on July 7th.
Who are the main actors in the elections?
Le Pen may be synonymous with National Rally, but she is not the far-right movement’s candidate for prime minister in the early elections. The National Rally’s figurehead in the race is Jordan Bardella, a well-educated, media-savvy 28-year-old and loyal protégé of Le Pen who joined the right-wing party as a teenager. (Le Pen is believed to be seeking the presidency in 2027.)
Bardella, elected party president in 2022, touts his working-class roots and reaches disaffected voters through TikTok, where he has 1.7 million followers. In impeccable suits, Bardella protests mass immigration and demographic changes. (“No French citizen would tolerate living in a house without doors or windows”, he said on French television this month, appearing to advocate tighter restrictions on immigration. “Well, it’s the same thing with a country.”)
“What he sells is that his party was never given a chance and that it is the only true alternative, with all others being affiliated with the so-called ‘establishment,’ a word that has a similar meaning to Trump’s ‘swamp.’” said Jean-Yves Camus, a French political scientist who studies nationalist movements in Europe, referring to the former US president’s characterization of entrenched interests in Washington.
Bardella’s counterpart in the centrist Renaissance coalition is 35-year-old Gabriel Attal, who has been nicknamed “Baby Macron” by some in the French press. Macron appointed Attal to the role of prime minister in January, making him the youngest and first openly gay person to hold the position.
Attal, a former member of the Socialist Party, grew his national stature when he worked as a government spokesman during the Covid-19 pandemic. He rose to prominence as budget minister and education minister before rising to the prime minister’s office, where he tried to broaden the appeal of the Renaissance movement at a time of latent dissatisfaction with Macron’s brand of middle-of-the-road liberalism.
But in recent opinion polls, Macron’s party trailed both the National Rally and the New Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing factions that includes socialists, communists and other groups. If the National Rally crushes competition in early elections, Attal would lose the prime ministership.
The far-left coalition has not publicly announced the selection of a candidate for prime minister, although prominent figures at that end of the ideological spectrum include Manuel Bompard of the far-left France Insubmissa party and Raphaël Glucksmann of the Socialist Party.
What would the results mean for the world?
If the far-right prevails, Macron’s domestic agenda would almost certainly be affected – and far-right nationalist movements around the world would likely be emboldened. The European Parliament elections, which proved so hard for Macron, were also tough for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democrats achieved their worst result ever thanks, in part, to the success of Germany’s Alternative for Germany. far right.
The National Rally’s triumph could portend good luck for former President Donald Trump as he seeks to regain the White House as the presumptive Republican nominee. Eight summers ago, the success of the UK’s Brexit referendum – fueled in part by anti-immigrant fervor – suggested a similar political atmosphere in the US; Trump, in turn, once called himself “Mr. Brexit.”
The rise of the National Rally could also endanger French support for Ukraine and derail Macron’s efforts to confront Russian aggression, according to Camus, who described the far-right party as isolationist. “He wants France to opt out of NATO military command and says he excludes sending missiles and troops to Ukraine,” which “would amount to a betrayal of Western interests,” Camus said.
Camus said the National Rally and Trump would likely “get along very well” if the presumptive Republican nominee wins another term. “It will be more difficult for a Democratic administration,” he added.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
