PoliticsSeptember 5, 2024

France’s National Rally marches toward power

Emmanuel Martin

Reading time: 15 min

The French far-right party has evolved from ostracization to become a significant political force.

For many years since its creation in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French far-right party National Front – now the National Rally (Rassemblement National or RN) – had been considered as an aberration in the country’s political landscape. Its founder was overtly racist and antisemitic, which did not sit well in a country that had to come to terms with its collaboration with the Nazis during the World War II and heal the “wounds of guilt” from its war with Algeria (1954-1962).

However, things have changed: the National Rally has gradually softened its ideology and is now the major player in French politics, despite many years of ostracization attempts from the established political system. The party won nearly a third of the vote for the European parliament elections in June, well ahead the presidential party, which came second with less than half that. During the most recent French legislative elections in June and July 2024, the National Rally won in terms of votes, but came in third in terms of seats, due to France’s voting system. The question now is how long the party will be barred from actual governmental power.

Gradual rise and acceptance

Since at least 1986, the party has gradually increased its electoral base, despite a setback during the 2007 elections. In the 2002 presidential elections, the presence of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round was a political earthquake. The far-right candidate then received just under 18 percent of vote, as many French people from the left voted for Jacques Chirac grudgingly to prevent Mr. Le Pen from winning.

More recently, in the 2017 and 2022 French presidential elections Marine Le Pen (daughter of Jean-Marie and leader of the National Rally since 2011) really stood out and progressed to the second round. In 2017, after garnering 21 percent of the vote (versus 24 percent for Emmanuel Macron) in the first round, she then received 34 percent of the vote in the second round, compared with 66 percent for Mr. Macron. In 2022, in the first round Ms. Le Pen received 24 percent while President Macron received 27 percent. In the second round, voters gave her 41 percent of the vote, the rest going to the incumbent.

Since at least 1986, the party has gradually increased its electoral base.

In the 2012 parliamentary elections, despite securing 14 percent of votes cast in the first round, in the second round the National Front had only two members elected to the 577-seat National Assembly. In 2017, garnering nearly the same 13 percent of the vote in the first round, the National Front then secured eight seats in the French lower house of parliament in the second round. The drastic change came in 2022, when Ms. Le Pen’s party won 19 percent of the vote in the first round and 89 seats in the second.

In 2024, President Macron dissolved the lower house after the European elections in June showed poor support for his centrist Renaissance party (originally known as En Marche!) and strong support for the right, and promptly called for fresh parliamentary elections. In the ensuing national elections in July, the National Rally won 29 percent of the vote in the first round, well ahead of the 20 percent Mr. Macron’s party secured, and just ahead of the left-wing coalition which garnered 28 percent. Despite winning the first round, the far-right party still won only 125 of 577 seats in the second round. President Macron’s party won 150 seats, denying him a majority government. The left coalition won 178 seats, claiming its right to form a government. The traditional center-right Les Republicains won just 39 seats, a humiliating result.

Sources of discontent

These election trends demonstrate a growing, clear change in the French political landscape, in which economic and social concerns raised by the far-right party are shared by a growing part of the French population that demands more national sovereignty.

From the start of the 1970s, a major source of voter discontent in France has been immigration and its related economic and cultural integration challenges. In the generation after World War II, given the labor shortages, migrant workers found employment in public works and the construction sector. While Spanish and Portuguese populations integrated rather quickly into French society, it was less the case for the Maghrebi (denoting people from western and central North Africa), notably after the war in Algeria (the number of Algerians doubled between 1962 and 1975, from 350,000 to 710,000). Many North African workers lived in shanty towns on the periphery of French cities in disgraceful conditions. Social housing blocks were built. And in 1976 then Prime Minister Jacques Chirac decreed “familial gathering” for the migrant workers, who could then welcome their family to France, creating an influx of migrants.

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Some migrant families were housed in high-rise social housing blocks in poor suburbs. Given costly French business and labor regulations, economic integration is difficult in those communities with small networks, poor education levels and high birth rates. While supported by the welfare state, these impoverished areas produce a high degree of violence and unemployment. Feelings of exclusion can even turn into anti-French sentiment.

Another aspect is the rapid “Islamification” of those populations in France, creating a cultural rejection from the rest of the European-originated population in a strongly secular state with a predominantly catholic history. The divergence in birthrates between the European-originated and African populations led to a feeling of so-called “great replacement.” In France, however, this is hard to formally quantify, as the country does not keep statistics regarding the ethnicity of inhabitants. The 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris added even more to feelings of Islamophobia.

Europe and globalism

The French population’s sense of loss of national sovereignty is also related to Europe and globalization. Because more and more decisions have been gradually transferred to Brussels, many people resent a sense of loss of political control. Moreover, there is a feeling that precisely this European integration was forced onto French citizens in an antidemocratic manner. To some extent, those feelings are not ill-founded: The majority of voters cast ballots against the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 as well as in 2005 against the treaty for the Constitution for Europe. Nevertheless, the French parliament voted to approve the Maastricht provisions in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty was implemented in 2007. The same feeling of loss of control is associated with free trade agreements at the global level.

The far right is traditionally protectionist. The influx of North African workers, subsequently Eastern European workers, or the ongoing flood of cheap Chinese goods are viewed by the National Rally and its voters as stealing jobs from “good French people.” There is some truth that globalization has shaken things up for the French, causing the deindustrialization process and trade deficits. However, globalization could have been viewed as an opportunity to thrive, had the French accepted the reforms and adapted.

Taxation and elitism

Another aspect of the party’s appeal has been its “Poujadist” element: in the 1950s Pierre Poujade (1920-2003), a populist politician, launched a party with an anti-taxation platform. Jean-Marie Le Pen was a member of parliament under the banner of the late Poujade’s party in 1956, then later he broke off to create his own movement. For some time, the tax revolt and big-government critique components were quite prominent in the National Front (even attracting some liberal voters).

Finally, the critique of globalism, “Brussels’ Europe” and foreign finance are key sources of discontent in the anti-elite ideas of the National Rally platform. The Yellow Vest movement in 2018, although not officially politically connected, can be related to this anti-elitist stance, especially with the protestors’ request for a Citizens’ Referendum, which is shared by the party. The narrative of national sovereignty is connected to this: The elite are seen as anti-democratic. It is hard to deny the attempts by the political establishment to counter the National Front and its populist agenda over the years, especially in a country where the elite are traditionally condescending toward the people.

Republican front

The idea of a “Republican front” (sharing the values of the French Republic on both the left and right) was created in 1955 to contain the Poujadist movement for the January 1956 legislative elections. It was used again in 2002 for the Le Pen-Chirac duel. The far-right has thus been labeled as anti-Republican. The idea was (according to former socialist Foreign Affairs Minister Roland Dumas) instrumentalized by late socialist President Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s.

On the one hand, Mitterrand allowed Mr. Le Pen’s ideas to spread more freely, especially by allowing him on television shows and by the introduction of the proportional voting system (once) during the 1986 legislative elections (the system favored more diversity and thus National Front members). On the other hand, Mitterrand supported anti-racist movements against Mr. Le Pen, which morally obliged the traditional right to distance itself from the National Front by a cordon sanitaire (today often referred to as a “firewall” against dangerous influences), which it did. Mitterrand’s strategy was thus also to divide the right and rule. The strategy failed in 1986 though, and Mr. Chirac, leader of the center-right, was prime minister for two years – one rare episode of cohabitation between a French government and a president from different sides of the political spectrum.

The term Republican front also implies that if one of the three candidates in the second round of legislative elections is from a far-right party, the “Republican” candidate (left or right) with the least chance of winning withdraws from the election to prevent the far-right candidate from winning. For presidential elections, if one of the two candidates in the second round comes from a far-right party, the “Republican” parties will call for voters to support the “Republican” candidate from left to center-right (like what happened in 2002, 2017 and 2022).

The strategy of demonizing the far-right, combined with Mr. Le Pen’s own gaffes (especially one famous antisemitic remark), worked for some time. However, gradually it gave far-right voters who were more concerned with immigration the impression they were ostracized and silenced. The very idea of a Republican front that was meant to protect democracy from the supposedly anti-democratic movement of the Le Pens ended up being perceived as quite undemocratic itself. It seemed that the “enlightened elite” were telling the French how to vote. Again, in June 2024, Mr. Macron would use the strategy.

Of course, the voting system for legislative elections has an impact on access to seats and thus to government. There has been a constant debate whether the proportional system offers better, fairer representativeness and thus more democracy, or if it makes it more difficult to maintain a stable government. The majoritarian system is less democratic but yields more stable assemblies, and thus enables governments to be more efficient. France’s Fifth Republic is rooted in a “rationalized parliamentarism” to enable a strong executive, thus typically closer to the majoritarian voting system. Presidents have regularly promised to introduce a “dose” of proportional democracy, but have then reneged, given the potential for instability.

National Rally transformations

As Jean-Marie Le Pen has aged, he has been replaced by his daughter Marine. She invested in the “de-demonization” of the party, cleaning up its racist and antisemitic elements and trying to distance the National Rally from its associations with her father’s neo-fascist heritage. The party has erased its founder’s antisemitism, notably by its current support for Israel. Its critique of immigration is still strong, but based on issues related to integration and a critical view of radical Islamism – issues that most parties, even on the left, now agree on. The party still rejects jus soli (birthright citizenship) but Ms. Le Pen has silenced openly racist comments. The movement’s once traditionalist, Catholic background has given way to a more secular position, more in line with the French idea of Republique.

Nevertheless, integration issues and conflicts have continuously attracted more young people who resent what they perceive as a “great replacement” and loss of Western cultural values in their daily life. Economically, the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the subsequent economic stagnation have created a sense of need for protection, which influences younger voters.

In 2019, Ms. Le Pen even backpedaled on the party’s longtime “Frexit” stance (an exit of France from the European Union and the euro zone), arguing that France would not be ready and that it would create chaos. Old pensioners, still a sizable part of her constituency, were indeed concerned that a Frexit would erase their savings. She proposed several reforms of the EU in order to reinforce national power, for example reinstating national border controls, a Europe of “cooperations” among nations, reestablishing the primacy of national law or the suppression of the posted workers directive.

The tax revolt narrative gradually lost its importance, even if the will to lower taxes, especially for small businesses, is still present. Ms. Le Pen has gradually been moving to the left, with a strong emphasis on a generous welfare state (for French citizens) as she saw communist and radical-left workers as a vast reserve of discontented voters – a strategy that indeed paid off. Her campaign platforms in the late 2010s were quite similar to that of the far left, even stressing localism and ecological concerns. All this helped attract younger generations usually lured by socialism.

More recently, the party believed a renewed focus on right-wing values was necessary, with an emphasis on the role of businesses, while keeping the protectionist mantra. The explicit use of the term “Republican values” in the party program makes it harder to call the National Rally an anti-Republican or a fascist movement anymore.

The party for had financial ties with Russia and echoed Kremlin narratives for years. However, the National Rally has condemned the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has since moderated its language regarding Russia.

Taken together, all this has narrowed the gap between the National Rally and the center-right parties. The nomination in 2021 of Jordan Bardella, a handsome, eloquent young man (born in 1995), as National Rally president added to Ms. Le Pen’s strategy to rejuvenate the party and attract more young people.

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