The French far left has formed a unified ‘Popular Front’ for President Emmanuel Macron’s snap election, but the French right is in shambles. Electoral pacts between Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, the populist Reconquest party, and the establishment right Les Republicains (Republicans) are failing spectacularly.
Macron called the legislative election, which will not affect the presidency after his party was drubbed by Le Pen’s party in the European Parliament elections. Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes Macron and his Renaissance party were damaged by their proximity to Joe Biden in the European elections and that calling a sudden national election is an attempt to catch the populist right while it is short on resources and steal its momentum. This has seen mixed success.
THE REPUBLICANS.
Broadly, the right has failed to marshal its forces. The Republican party president, Éric Ciotti, attempted to form an electoral pact with the once-untouchable Le Pen, but the effort collapsed when the party’s political bureau mounted a coup against him. This unfolded in shambolic fashion, with Ciotti staying the removal proceedings by literally locking the plotters out of party headquarters.
They now claim he has been ousted from the party leader altogether, but he claims he retains his position and that the proceedings against him were invalid. He also says he and tens of other Republican lawmakers still intend to run alongside Le Pen.
It is a mark of how much the Overton Window has shifted that an alliance between the Republicans, once a GOP-like dominant force on the French right, and Le Pen is even being seriously discussed.
FAMILY FEUD.
A potential alliance between National Rally and Reconquest, a rival populist party founded by ‘French Tucker Carlson’ Eric Zemmour, has also unraveled. Negotiations were led by Marion Maréchal, the niece of Le Pen, who defected from the National Rally to Zemmour’s party. They are rumored to have failed because Le Pen demanded Zemmour be sidelined as the price of a pact.
Maréchal, just elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) on a Reconquest ticket, denounced the failure to agree to terms as a “triple mistake,” with three of the party’s other four MEPs agreeing with her. Zemmour accused her of “betrayal” and expelled her from the party.
LEFTIST UNITY.
France’s far-left parties have been better organized, uniting under a common ‘Popular Front’ banner under Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who placed third behind Macron and Le Pen in the last French presidential election.
Right-wing disunity may benefit Macron, leaving Le Pen without an overall majority in the French legislature even if, as projected, her party places first. However, far-left unity looks set to cause the globalist leader a significant headache, with Mélenchon’s Popular Front projected to beat his Renaissance party into third place.
The first round of the snap election will be held on June 30 and the second on July 7, sandwiching Britain’s snap election.
Macron, whose second term should run until 2027, has said he will not resign regardless of the results. He will retain broad control over French defense and foreign policy even if the legislature is controlled by populists and the far left, but implementing his domestic agenda will become much more difficult.
