The far right on the verge of power: here are five things to remember from the French elections

The far right is on the verge of power in France, where all signs point to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally winning the second round of legislative elections next Sunday, handing a crushing defeat to current President Emmanuel Macron’s party. Here’s what you need to know.

• Read also: RN in the lead in legislative elections: “A historic period in France”

• Read also: Victory of the National Rally in the first round in France: what is the extreme right?

• Read also: 5 Things to Know About Jordan Bardella, the Possible Far-Right French Prime Minister

The RN in a good position

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) came out on top in the first round of the legislative elections last Sunday, with more than 33.1% of the vote, ahead of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (28%) and the centrist party Ensemble, led by Emmanuel Macron (20.8%).

A sign of the importance of these elections, the participation rate reached a level not seen since 1997 with 67.5%.

“RN is in a good position to finish first on Sunday evening [au deuxième tour]”It would be extremely surprising if he were to drop back to second place,” says Julien Tourreille, researcher in strategic and diplomatic studies at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.

In a last-ditch attempt to block the far right, around a hundred candidates from the left or Macron’s camp withdrew on Monday so that the opposition vote to the RN would be concentrated on a single candidate in these constituencies, according to an AFP count.

Very different resultsnts au Qu• Also read: Victory of the National Rally in the first round in France: what is the extreme right?ébec

In Quebec, where nearly 13,000 French citizens voted online or at the ballot box in Montreal, the New Popular Front came out on top with 56.3% of the vote, followed by Ensemble (22.5%) and the National Rally (9.9%).

Voters living here, however, vote for a candidate representing all French people in North America. On this scale, it was the Ensemble candidate who won with 38.8%.

The French living in Montreal, among whom there are many students, have historically supported the left during elections.

• Listen to Philippe Lorange’s column with Alexandre Moranville via OLD :

Macron’s risky (and failed) bet

Emmanuel Macron could suffer a bitter setback on Sunday at the end of a race that he himself launched on June 9, when he dissolved the National Assembly.

He had just lost the European elections to the RN and took the risky gamble of exploiting the divisions on the left and forming a new barrier to counter the far right by triggering new elections, according to the analysis of the media France 24.

The results of the first round confirm the “failure” of this bet, believes Julien Tourreille.

The normalization of the extreme right

Next Sunday could be a historic day with the arrival of Marine Le Pen’s party at the helm of the government for the first time among our French cousins.

The National Rally believes in particular that French civilisation is endangered by the “migratory submersion” and proposes drastic measures to remedy this, such as facilitating the expulsion of delinquent or irregular foreigners and reserving family allowances for French nationals.

His arrival in power would also be the culmination of the normalization of a party that was still unapproachable twenty years ago, argues Julien Tourreille.

“In 2002, there was this fear of seeing Jean-Marie Le Pen [fondateur du parti] qualified for the second round. For the past ten years, the fact that the RN candidate [Marine Le Pen] either in the second round no longer aroused fear or surprise.”

How then can we explain his current popularity? “He is capitalizing on the traditional left’s inability to care about the concerns of the popular electorate such as purchasing power, immigration, and the effects of globalization,” says Mr. Tourreille.

• Listen to the interview with Rachel Binhas, journalist at Marianne in France, on the microphone of Alexandre Moranville via OLD:

What impact on French politics?

An RN victory could shift the center of gravity of French politics from the president to the National Assembly, as Emmanuel Macron’s party would no longer have control of it.

“The president would be in the background, as we see in Italy and Germany, and would provide representational functions abroad by acting as guarantor of the institutions. He is less involved in the day-to-day political game, because he does not lead the government,” explains Mr. Tourreille.

Such “cohabitation” between a president and an assembly belonging to two different parties has already worked well several times in the past, but never with a far-right party involved, adds the researcher.

Furthermore, the RN could not necessarily implement all of its anti-immigration ideas, because several of them could be declared illegal, the expert points out.

“There are things they cannot legally do, such as sending undocumented immigrants back home. The rule of international law is that you cannot send someone back to their country of origin if the latter does not agree to receive them,” concludes Mr. Tourreille.

– With AFP