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Marine Le Pen, French far-right leader and far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally - RN) party candidate, reacts on stage after partial results in the first round of the early French parliamentary elections in Henin-Beaumont, France, June 30, 2024.
Can Le Pen rewrite French politics next week?
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, aka RN, topped the first round of voting on Sunday, winning about a third of the French vote – the best showing in the party’s half-century history. But in next Sunday’s round two, will she be able to win a majority?
Non: Macron’s Ensemble party, which placed third with about 20%, is hobbled, but the left and center right are also closing ranks against Le Pen. In hundreds of races, they’re withdrawing third-place candidates to consolidate direct challenges to RN. Respected pollsters predict about 270 seats for Le Pen, 19 shy of a majority.
That would mean a chaotic, hung parliament and a caretaker government overseen by a technocrat. President Emmanuel Macron would be a lame duck for the last three years of his presidency. Count France out of any major EU initiatives during that time.
Oui: If collapsing most races into two-way contests alienates voters and suppresses turnout, the RN benefits from greater motivation among its base. And of course, pollsters have historically had trouble accurately predicting RN’s appeal.
The loser: In calling these snap elections after Le Pen surged in European Parliament elections, Macron gambled that, as in the past, the French people would have little appetite for far-right rule at home. No matter what happens next Sunday he – and the liberal centrist movement he has built – have lost that bet.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks next to NATO Secretary General after a meeting at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on June 24, 2024.
Macron’s election gambit looks doomed to fail
France faces a nail-biter snap election this Sunday. Barring one of the biggest polling errors in French history, President Emmanuel Macron is set to lose his parliamentary majority.
Where are the polls? The far-right National Rally, aka RN, party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is ahead with 35-38% of the vote, far exceeding Macron’s party, which is polling around 20% and falling. But an unlikely alliance of leftist parties calling itself the New Popular Front, or NFP, is garnering 28-31% of the vote, and given France’s unpredictable two-round voting system, the final result is anyone’s guess.
The worst-case scenario for Macron: Voters who fear the far right flock to the NFP, while those who fear the left go to RN in a mutual attempt to block the other’s chances of forming a government — squeezing Macron’s centrists out.
There’s a chance RN can pull off a slim majority, which would make Bardella Macron’s new prime minister – hardly a recipe for productive governance. Bardella says he won’t form a minority government and risk a rapid ejection by a coalition of centrists and left-wingers.
The left, meanwhile, is less likely to get a majority, and even if they did, they can’t agree on who would get to be PM.
What about a deadlock? This might be Macron’s best bet. He could then attempt to form a national unity government with a technocratic moderate as PM. Failing that, he could keep the current government with reduced powers in a caretaker capacity for one year before holding new elections — but that’s an unpopular option, and Macron is already deeply unpopular.
Macron’s decision to call snap elections may be one he lives to regret. France will struggle with gridlock and partisanship in virtually all these potential outcomes, which will be detrimental to France – and to Macron’s domestic and geopolitical ambitions.
“It would be ironic,” Ian Bremmerwrote yesterday, “if the man most devoted to building a strong France, Europe, and Ukraine ended up being responsible for weakening all three.”Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National) party parliamentary group, gestures during the party's campaign for the EU elections, in Paris, France, on June 2, 2024.
Viewpoint: Far right poised for gains in EU elections
Nearly 400 million people across the 27 countries of the EU will be eligible to vote from June 6-9 for members of the European Parliament. These representatives will serve a five-year term and be charged with passing and amending EU legislation. But their first order of business will be to elect the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. They will vote on a candidate proposed by the European Council, which comprises the EU heads of state or government, based on the parliamentary election results.
Amid intensifying economic concerns and longstanding fears of migration, far-right parties are expected to expand their parliamentary representation. We asked Eurasia Group experts Anna-Carina Hamker and Mujtaba Rahman why that is and what this strong showing could mean for EU policy and politics over the next five years.
What issues are shaping voter preferences?
Unsurprisingly, there is some variation across member states. According to recent Eurobarometer polling, security concerns are greater in eastern European countries that are closer to the war in Ukraine, whereas climate change and the economy top the list of concerns elsewhere. But broadly speaking, the economic situation, public health, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, and defense and security are key issues in most European countries.
Far-right parties appear poised for strong gains – why is that?
Amid sluggish economic growth and high inflation, policies to mitigate climate change and favor agricultural imports from Ukraine have prompted a public backlash to which established conservative and socialist parties have been slow to respond. The discontent spilled out into the streets earlier this year in a series of protests by farmers and truckers. Sensing an opening, far-right parties threw their support behind the protests and have seen their popularity soar.
A more structural factor of support for these parties is concern over migration, which really started to gain traction with the large flows of refugees fleeing the war in Syria in 2014. European countries have long histories of receiving migration but lack steering mechanisms such as functioning integration policies. Center-left and center-right parties have ignored the issue for decades, resulting in high levels of integration failure in European societies.
How big do you expect these gains to be, and what will be their impact on EU policy?
Far-right parties will likely expand their representation from less than 20% of seats to about 25%. Overall, that will not materially affect policymaking on key issues such as Ukraine, competitiveness, and enlargement over the next five years, which was already going to be difficult. But it will have an impact on the EU’s environmental agenda and its stance on migration. Far-right parties have already helped drive an overhaul of the bloc’s migration framework and dilute some aspects of the green agenda.
The next commission will have to tackle the next big phase of the green transition, which will involve more politically costly measures for households and firms to achieve net zero by 2050. Ad-hoc cooperation between centrist and right-wing groups on these issues will likely delay or dilute some of these measures. Nonetheless, it is unlikely to derail the EU's climate ambitions overall, as all the major party groups and the vast majority of national governments remain committed to meeting both the 2030 and 2050 goals.
What will be the consequences of these gains for domestic politics in prominent member states?
A strong result for the far right would likely have the biggest impact in France, where polling suggests that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party will outperform President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party. That would increase the odds of a successful censure motion against the government in parliament that would trigger early parliamentary elections. If Le Pen’s formation were to win half the seats in those elections (which is unlikely), that would force Macron to appoint her or someone else from her party as prime minister.
Meanwhile, a strong showing for Alternative for Germany would further fuel the debate about migration and give the party a boost ahead of important elections in three eastern German states in September and general elections next year. Similarly, a strong showing for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers party would reinforce its standing within the ruling coalition. Moreover, there is speculation that Meloni could offer her support for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for another term in exchange for a weighty portfolio in the next commission and policy concessions that would help Meloni’s domestic agenda.
What are the biggest policy challenges EU institutions will face in their next mandate?
Providing diplomatic, military, and financial support for Ukraine will remain a top priority for the EU, especially considering expectations of a weaker US commitment. A potential return to the White House by Donald Trump would create new difficulties for EU institutions, particularly on trade, as Trump would likely increase tariffs on European goods. Trade relations with China will also deteriorate as Brussels rolls out tariffs on electric vehicles and considers additional steps—and Beijing prepares retaliatory measures. Beyond these immediate challenges, Brussels faces the difficult task of doing more for its security by enacting more robust defense policies. Enlargement will be another important issue. Finding ways to shoulder the financial burden of welcoming new countries and tackling potential trade distortions that would affect some member states more than others will be among the priorities.
Edited by Jonathan House, senior editor at Eurasia Group.