Political negotiations are in their final stretch in France, which will see the posters for the second round of the early legislative elections on Sunday on Tuesday evening, after a wave of withdrawals by centre-right and left-wing candidates to prevent the far right from coming to power.
The rise of the far right, which could lead a government for the first time since World War II, is being scrutinized abroad and is causing concern among France’s major European partners.
The far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies won 33.1% of the vote in the first round of the legislative elections (29.25% for the RN and 3.90% for its allies) and have 39 deputies elected in the first round, including RN figurehead Marine Le Pen.
The left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) obtained 27.99% of the votes and already has 32 elected representatives, while the presidential camp sank (20.8%).
After more than 165 withdrawals have already been announced, the casting for the second round of the legislative elections will be known on Tuesday at 16:00 GMT (10:00 EDT), three weeks after the disastrous dissolution of the National Assembly by French President Emmanuel Macron, following his failure in the European elections in early June.
This starting line should confirm the constitution of a “republican front” against the RN and its allies.
“Withdraw”
“Against the RN: withdraw, prove that you exist”, was the headline in the left-wing newspaper on Tuesday. Release in a nod to the popular French song Resists performed by France Gall, former Eurovision winner.
A moral authority on the left, the former general secretary of the reformist CFDT union, Laurent Berger, warned in an interview with AFP on Monday against any “hitch in the Republican withdrawal.”
Among these withdrawals, which concern constituencies where at least three candidates are qualified and where the RN is in a position to win, are a majority of representatives of the left alliance as well as three ministers.
The objective is to prevent the RN from obtaining an absolute majority of 289 deputies on Sunday evening in the second round. If it were achieved, a period of political uncertainty would open up with a risk of the Assembly being blocked.
Marine Le Pen spoke on Tuesday of a relative majority of “270 deputies” supplemented with support, so that the party president, Jordan Bardella, 28, would agree to lead a cohabitation government.
Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founded the National Front in 1972 with two former members of the Waffen-SS, which became the RN in 2018. At the time, Mr. Le Pen had chosen the same emblem as that of the Italian neo-fascist party: a tricolor flame.
Obsessed with immigration and Jews, a fierce supporter of French Algeria, Jean-Marie Le Pen has been condemned several times for his excesses. His daughter has embarked for a decade on a strategy of de-demonization and normalization of the sulphurous party.
Divisions
“We have seven days to prevent France from a catastrophe,” insisted the social-democrat MEP Raphaël Glucksmann on Sunday evening, calling on all candidates who came in third place to withdraw.
But for its radical left ally La France Insoumise (LFI), the rule will only apply where the RN came out on top, according to its very divisive leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
In the presidential camp, the line is not clear.
At a government meeting on Monday, Mr Macron did not give clear instructions, according to several ministerial sources. But according to one participant, he said that “not one vote” should “go to the extreme right”.
Several Macronist candidates have announced that they will remain in office despite everything. And the outgoing majority is dragging its feet when it comes to supporting an LFI candidate, a turn-off for centrist voters and for some on the left, due to the excesses of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose party is accused of anti-Semitism.
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire himself dismissed LFI and RN on Tuesday, comparing their programs to “two disguised Frexits (France’s exit from the European Union, Editor’s note).”
The situation in France is being closely followed abroad.
The head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, admitted that she could not “remain indifferent” to the risk that a party “which sees Europe as the problem and not the solution would come out on top” in its neighbour and ally.
Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, on the other hand, was pleased that “demonization” no longer worked.
Cautious, Washington indicated that it had “full confidence […] in the democratic processes of France” and wish to continue “close cooperation” with Paris, while the war rages between Ukraine and Russia.