Unsurprisingly, the National Rally (RN), allied with Eric Ciotti, came out on top in the first round of the French legislative elections. It won 37 seats with 9,377,297 votes, or 19.01% of registered voters and 29.5% of those cast. The Union of the Left (UG) had to settle for second place with 32 seats, or 8,974,566 votes. As for the presidential majority, it suffered a bitter defeat with 2 seats (6,425,217 votes).
Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, and all the leaders of the New Popular Front called on their candidates who came in third place to withdraw to block the National Rally. How can we explain these results?
Dynamic
“There has been a clearly growing dynamic for several years. The year 2002 was a founding moment since the presidential elections of that year had a lasting impact on French political life. Indeed, during these elections, the FN managed to attract 4 million voters in the first round and 5 million in the second. In 2022, Marine Le Pen cast 13 million votes,” a French partisan source explained to us. And to specify: “The RN today has a standardized electorate which is spread across the entire national territory and in all social circles. It is no longer simply a question of workers or people experiencing social downgrading. Today it affects professions which were relatively spared, such as National Education teachers. According to certain studies, one in three teachers declare themselves to be FN.”
For our source, it is unthinkable that people who voted 15 days ago in the European elections will change their minds. “The almost 10 million voters who chose the RN are aware that these elections represent the last opportunity to access power and that we must mobilize more. They also know that if the FN missed the 2002 elections, the year 2024 will be favorable given the fragmentation of French society and the inability to form a sacred union in an extremely polarized society. Especially since the left has managed to create an electoral cartel without managing to bring together all points of view and remains divided because society itself is divided,” she observed. And to note: “The RN wins on two major themes, namely migration-identity and security. This is the background that mobilized several voters, in particular with the role played by certain press close to the ideas of the extreme right. Indeed, the 2024 elections are distinguished from those of 2002 by the emergence of a more liberal information industry and the existence of a media player (Bolloré Group) that has decided to bet on the FN. Which is a major novelty.
Migration et security
According to our source, the RN has succeeded in making the issue of migration the factor responsible for all the ills of French society. “The problem is that this kind of speech resonates in people’s minds. In particular the populations of rural areas as well as the electorate from medium and small towns, who feel like the first victims of globalization and social downgrading. They feel helpless in the face of pay slips that are not increasing, prices that are increasing, purchasing power that is weakening and the cost of energy that is soaring. A study recently showed that 64% of people who vote for the FN admit to being racist. We are therefore in a shift which is likely to continue for the next 20 years. Worse, the latest results of the legislative elections represent a major shift whose impact will be transposable to other countries.”
Instrumentalization
Michel Agier, anthropologist, emeritus research director at the Research Institute for Development, director of studies at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and researcher affiliated with IC Migrations, published a column on Tuesday June 25 2024, in Le Monde where he denounces the instrumentalization of migration issues by part of the political spectrum, which continues to disseminate ideas on migration that are largely refuted by research. “The theme of migration, presented by the National Rally as an urgent problem of security and identity […]masks a reactivated racist infrathink in the face of the movement of people from formerly colonized countries. […] Facts […] speak of a reality that is greater and more ordinary than all the fantasies conveyed about them,” explains the anthropologist. “Since 2018, the numerous research projects produced by the Convergences Migrations Institute have described the anchoring of international migrations in all societies, of departure, transit and arrival, the social and cultural transformations experienced by people in migration and those who welcome them, but also the extent of the violence experienced by people from countries in the South in the face of the hostile policies of most European states,” continues Michel Agier.
On the eve of the early legislative elections, Michel Agier invites us to “look around [nous]”. “It is rare, not to say exceptional, that each French person does not have in his own genealogy (ascendants, descendants, collaterals and spouses) people with skin color, accent or name “who do not not French”. It is rare that this close otherness does not have something to do with France’s colonial past, in Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Middle East or the West Indies. According to him, “It is not […] “It is not the issue of migration that worries the extreme right and the right behind it. It is the share of strangeness that everyone has in themselves, each person and the whole country. Recognizing this share is the best response to any policy based on fear of others,” he concludes.
Catastrophe
But is France able to coexist with the RN today? “For a while, there was the slogan: “Youth screw the National Front”, chanted in demonstrations against the extreme right. Today, this is no longer the case. More than a third of young people vote for the RN. But it is not only France that has changed, it is the entire European continent. And this is why the second round promises to be catastrophic due to the lack of unanimity between the different components of French society”, concluded our source.
Hassan Bentaleb
