France’s National Rally: State of the State and its Implications for the Politics and Public Works of the Far-Right

“This is a revenge of the people against the elites, in the media and politics,” he said. I am a part of those who have voted. They lied to us by saying immigration was a chance for the country.

At the election celebration in Henin-Beaumont, a 41-year-old man said the far right’s success had been a long time coming.

The National Rally has questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France, and it wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality. Critics say that undermines human rights and is a threat to France’s democratic ideals.

Many voters are frustrated with inflation and other issues. Online platforms such as TikTok were tapped by the National Rally. The rising cost of living was one of the topics raised in the campaign. Hate speech was rising during the campaign.

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. Predictions are difficult because of the two-round voting system.

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 plans to boost voters’ spending power without clearly detailing how it would pay for it could make European financial markets nervous.

The second round will show whether Le Pen’s party and its allies get the majority they need to form a government and start undoing many of the policies of the other candidate. That includes stopping FRENCH deliveries of long-range missiles to Ukraine in the war against Russia. The National Rally has historical ties to Russia.

The National Rally leaped into a strong lead Sunday in France’s first round of legislative elections, polling agencies predicted, which would allow it to form a government and deal a big slap to centrist President EmmanuelMacron.

The National Rally isn’t there yet. With another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remains uncertain.

Stopping the National Rally from having an absolute majority in the second round and governing the country with its disastrous project, France’s prime minister J’on-Marie Bardella

A parliamentary majority would allow National Rally leader Marine Le Pen to replace Jordan Bardella with her 29-year-old right-hand man and make the party less boring 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 put the centrist parties in third place in the first-round ballot behind the National Rally and the new left-wing coalition of parties.

When he dissolved the National Assembly on June 9, after a stinging defeat at the hands of the National Rally in French voting for the European Parliament, Macron gambled that the anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism wouldn’t repeat that success when France’s own fate was in the balance.

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.”

There is a chance the National Assembly will have a hung parliament, as no party wins a majority. Next year, there could be another election.

It isn’t just the National Rally that beat Macron. The second-place left-wing New Popular Front has also worried some voters. 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 voter turnout makes this election more complicated. More than 300 races are happening this election because of the rules for how candidates qualify for the second round.

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.

Meanwhile, other countries are watching events in France — many with alarm, though some who support nationalist populists are encouraged by the result.

The Belgian Le Soir newspaper slams Macron as “a president who, far from protecting his country against the far right for good, has legitimized it by abandoning the ballot box to it.” The newsmagazine asked “Why isEmmanuelMacron handing the country over to the far right?”

In Ukraine, the most-read article in Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper was a news item on the election, which ends on a note ofconcern: “The National Rally’s position on the Russian-Ukrainian war remains unknown. The red lines the party has established include not giving the Ukrainian army long-range weaponry.