Image source, Reuters
Article information
- Author, Alexandra Fouche
- Role, BBC World Service
-
2 hours ago
The far-right National Rally party came first in the list of candidates, winning 33 percent of the votes in the first round of the French parliamentary elections held on Sunday.
A coalition of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front came in second with 28 percent of the vote, while the coalition led by French President Emmanuel Macron came in third with nearly 21 percent of the vote.
Macron called on the centrist and left-wing parties to unite to prevent the far-right from taking control of parliament.
What are some of the reasons that led French voters to vote for a party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in an unprecedented way, enabling them to win the first round of the French legislative elections for the first time?
This simple reality that has become possible is a historic event, says expert commentator Alain Duhamel.
Internal reasons and the state of the economy
The living conditions crisis is at the top of voters’ list of priorities, after it affected their purchasing power, raised energy prices, undermined access to medical care, in addition to the rising crime rate, which the French describe as “insecurity.”
While France’s economy is generally good, residents of French regions far from major cities said they felt ignored, with funding and attention shifting to cities and unemployment in some areas as high as 25 percent.
Some cannot afford housing, schools in some areas have closed due to budget cuts, and many are angry as local health care centers close in favor of large health centers in cities.
Professor Thomas Piketty told the BBC that the winners of globalisation policies form the core support bloc for Macron, and those who feel left behind are moving towards the far right.
Piketty, author of the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, identified a large support base: “In small towns, there has been a huge loss of industry, a lot of difficulty accessing public services, train lines have closed, hospitals have closed – it’s now harder to educate your children if you live far from the big cities.”
Comment on the image, Aurelie said she was proud when Macron became president because he is from Amiens (a city in northern France) – but now she feels disappointed.
Patrick, from Pont-Combou, east of Paris, voted for the National Rally in the European elections. “People want change here and they are excited to vote,” he told the BBC. “They are not happy when they feel unsafe on the streets.”
Aurelie, 37, a cleaner with her two-year-old son from the northern city of Amiens where Macron grew up, says the main issue on which we agree with the National Rally’s policy is security.
“I wake up and go to work every day at 4.30am. I used to be able to ride my bike and walk anywhere in Amiens. Not anymore. Now I take my car,” she told the BBC.
“There are young men hanging around all the time, and I’m scared.”
Among the concerns among voters is the issue of pensions, after Macron signed an unpopular reform issued by his government last year to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Macron said it was a necessary reform to prevent the compensation system from collapsing.
Recent increases in the cost of electricity and gas for heating homes have been a big issue for voters. National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said he would focus on cutting the sales tax on energy products and a list of 100 essential goods, and would roll back the government’s compensation reforms within months.
dissatisfaction with the existing system
Voters have repeatedly said that the political system is not working for them, that the National Rally has never been tested in government, and that change is as important as comfort.
“I am satisfied, because we need change,” Jean-Claude Gayet, 64, from Marine Le Pen’s northern voting stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, told Reuters after Sunday’s vote.
“Things haven’t moved, and they need to move.”
“The party has made inroads because people are tired,” said Marguerite, 80, another Rally supporter from Henin-Beaumont. “Now they are saying: ‘We don’t care, let’s vote and see what happens.’”
“But now, I am afraid that other parties will put obstacles in the way. We voted and here are the results, and we have to accept them and see what happens.”
But Yamina Addo, a resident of the nearby town of Wanyi, said she was shocked by the National Rally’s success.
She said that voters had been manipulated to support the far right, and that their decision could lead to serious and dangerous divisions in French society:
“It shocked me, of course, I find the situation sad, because I don’t think people understand what’s going on. They only consider purchasing power, and other short-term, visible things.”
“But behind this, there are a lot of ideas and manipulations, which will take us to a different type of war. Not like World War I and World War II, it will be more precise, and people do not realize that we may end up in a civil war, that is what I believe, it is people like us who will suffer.”
Comment on the image, Many have blamed French President Macron for the current crisis the country finds itself in.
“Macron created a consensus movement to bring together people from across the political spectrum,” Sophie Bedier, the Economist’s Paris bureau chief, told the BBC. “It worked and it put an end to the endless bickering that had been going on inside the council and between the two sides.”
“But the result was that all the moderates on the left and right joined Macron’s party, leaving him with only one alternative – the hardliners.”
Tackling immigration and concerns about French identity
Image source, AFP
Comment on the image, The leader of the National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, has been very active on social media platforms, especially TikTok.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally in parliament, has worked for years to make her party more popular and more acceptable to voters.
She shifted her focus from the anti-Semitic and extremist roots of the National Front party founded by her father, Jean-Marine Le Pen, and his associates, and changed its name to the National Rally.
However, it remains a populist, Eurosceptic and strongly anti-immigration party.
Its current leader, Jordan Bardella, has said he wants to prevent French dual nationals from holding sensitive strategic positions, describing them as “half-patriots”.
He also wants to limit social welfare for immigrants and get rid of the automatic right of children of parents born outside France to French nationality.
But the plan to ban the wearing of the headscarf in public places is not a priority now.
The party plays on fears that minorities, especially Muslims, will not integrate into French society.
For example, candidate Ivanka Dimitrova told the BBC that the National Rally party would sue immigrants who put their religion above the French nation’s religion.
Comment on the image, French public opinion has become more harsh against immigration in the past decade, one analyst says.
There is no evidence that this is a common belief in immigrant communities, and the party has not made clear what “action” it will take, beyond existing law.
The Financial Times’ Paris bureau chief says: “Public opinion in France has become increasingly hardline on immigration over the past decade. You can probably go back to the refugee crisis of the Syrian war in 2015. Politicians change according to what they see in the shifting sands around them.”
Regarding the European Union, the National Rally promised to end the supremacy of European laws, which is the cornerstone of the European Union project.
But anti-NATO and anti-EU policies have been on the decline, and the National Rally has quietly abandoned its close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Leaving the European Union has not been on the party’s agenda since 2022.
far right on social media
The National Rally successfully campaigned under simple slogans and ideas, playing on people’s fears of losing their French identity and on the widespread crisis of purchasing power.
The party has used social media very effectively to boost its image and make voters feel trustworthy and familiar.
“In France we call Jordan Barbella the TikTok politician, because he is a politician who moves social media and he does it with ease,” Vincent Lebroux of the University of Franche-Comté told BBC Newsnight.
“It’s something that has contributed significantly to his profile. You don’t know exactly what he proposes, but you find a lot of it.”
“Many people are not racists. They are just fed up with the system, fed up with Macron’s policies, with all the promises that were made to them,” says Charles Culioli, a radical leftist candidate on the New Popular Front list against the National Rally.
The Rise of the Far Right in France: Why Did Marine Le Pen Win the First Round of the Parliamentary Elections?
The far-right National Rally party came first in the list of candidates, winning 33 percent of the votes in the first round of the French parliamentary elections held on Sunday.
A coalition of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front came in second with 28 percent of the vote, while the coalition led by French President Emmanuel Macron came in third with nearly 21 percent of the vote.
Macron called on the centrist and left-wing parties to unite to prevent the far-right from taking control of parliament.
What are some of the reasons that led French voters to vote for a party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in an unprecedented way, enabling them to win the first round of the French legislative elections for the first time?
This simple reality that has become possible is a historic event, says expert commentator Alain Duhamel.
Internal Reasons and the State of the Economy
The living conditions crisis is at the top of voters’ list of priorities, after it affected their purchasing power, raised energy prices, undermined access to medical care, in addition to the rising crime rate, which the French describe as “insecurity.”
While France’s economy is generally good, residents of French regions far from major cities said they felt ignored, with funding and attention shifting to cities and unemployment in some areas as high as 25 percent.
Some cannot afford housing, schools in some areas have closed due to budget cuts, and many are angry as local health care centers close in favor of large health centers in cities.
Professor Thomas Piketty told the BBC that the winners of globalisation policies form the core support bloc for Macron, and those who feel left behind are moving towards the far right.
Piketty, author of the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, identified a large support base: “In small towns, there has been a huge loss of industry, a lot of difficulty accessing public services, train lines have closed, hospitals have closed – it’s now harder to educate your children if you live far from the big cities.”
Aurelie, 37, a cleaner with her two-year-old son from the northern city of Amiens where Macron grew up, says the main issue on which we agree with the National Rally’s policy is security.
“I wake up and go to work every day at 4.30am. I used to be able to ride my bike and walk anywhere in Amiens. Not anymore. Now I take my car,” she told the BBC.
“There are young men hanging around all the time, and I’m scared.”
Among the concerns among voters is the issue of pensions, after Macron signed an unpopular reform issued by his government last year to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Macron said it was a necessary reform to prevent the compensation system from collapsing.
Recent increases in the cost of electricity and gas for heating homes have been a big issue for voters. National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said he would focus on cutting the sales tax on energy products and a list of 100 essential goods, and would roll back the government’s compensation reforms within months.
Dissatisfaction with the Existing System
Voters have repeatedly said that the political system is not working for them, that the National Rally has never been tested in government, and that change is as important as comfort.
“I am satisfied, because we need change,” Jean-Claude Gayet, 64, from Marine Le Pen’s northern voting stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, told Reuters after Sunday’s vote.
“Things haven’t moved, and they need to move.”
“The party has made inroads because people are tired,” said Marguerite, 80, another Rally supporter from Henin-Beaumont. “Now they are saying: ‘We don’t care, let’s vote and see what happens.’”
“But now, I am afraid that other parties will put obstacles in the way. We voted and here are the results, and we have to accept them and see what happens.”
But Yamina Addo, a resident of the nearby town of Wanyi, said she was shocked by the National Rally’s success.
She said that voters had been manipulated to support the far right, and that their decision could lead to serious and dangerous divisions in French society:
“It shocked me, of course, I find the situation sad, because I don’t think people understand what’s going on. They only consider purchasing power, and other short-term, visible things.”
“But behind this, there are a lot of ideas and manipulations, which will take us to a different type of war. Not like World War I and World War II, it will be more precise, and people do not realize that we may end up in a civil war, that is what I believe, it is people like us who will suffer.”
“Macron created a consensus movement to bring together people from across the political spectrum,” Sophie Bedier, the Economist’s Paris bureau chief, told the BBC. “It worked and it put an end to the endless bickering that had been going on inside the council and between the two sides.”
“But the result was that all the moderates on the left and right joined Macron’s party, leaving him with only one alternative – the hardliners.”
Tackling Immigration and Concerns about French Identity
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally in parliament, has worked for years to make her party more popular and more acceptable to voters.
She shifted her focus from the anti-Semitic and extremist roots of the National Front party founded by her father, Jean-Marine Le Pen, and his associates, and changed its name to the National Rally.
However, it remains a populist, Eurosceptic and strongly anti-immigration party.
Its current leader, Jordan Bardella, has said he wants to prevent French dual nationals from holding sensitive strategic positions, describing them as “half-patriots”.
He also wants to limit social welfare for immigrants and get rid of the automatic right of children of parents born outside France to French nationality.
But the plan to ban the wearing of the headscarf in public places is not a priority now.
The party plays on fears that minorities, especially Muslims, will not integrate into French society.
For example, candidate Ivanka Dimitrova told the BBC that the National Rally party would sue immigrants who put their religion above the French nation’s religion.
There is no evidence that this is a common belief in immigrant communities, and the party has not made clear what “action” it will take, beyond existing law.
The Financial Times’ Paris bureau chief says: “Public opinion in France has become increasingly hardline on immigration over the past decade. You can probably go back to the refugee crisis of the Syrian war in 2015. Politicians change according to what they see in the shifting sands around them.”
Regarding the European Union, the National Rally promised to end the supremacy of European laws, which is the cornerstone of the European Union project.
But anti-NATO and anti-EU policies have been on the decline, and the National Rally has quietly abandoned its close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Leaving the European Union has not been on the party’s agenda since 2022.
Far Right on Social Media
The National Rally successfully campaigned under simple slogans and ideas, playing on people’s fears of losing their French identity and on the widespread crisis of purchasing power.
The party has used social media very effectively to boost its image and make voters feel trustworthy and familiar.
“In France we call Jordan Barbella the TikTok politician, because he is a politician who moves social media and he does it with ease,” Vincent Lebroux of the University of Franche-Comté told BBC Newsnight.
“It’s something that has contributed significantly to his profile. You don’t know exactly what he proposes, but you find a lot of it.”
“Many people are not racists. They are just fed up with the system, fed up with Macron’s policies, with all the promises that were made to them,” says Charles Culioli, a radical leftist candidate on the New Popular Front list against the National Rally.
economy, social media, French identity, Macron">