French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is not on the ballot in this weekend’s European Parliament elections, but she is likely to be one of the poll’s biggest winners.
Polls expect his party, the National Rally, to win the most votes in France, overtaking President Emmanuel Macron’s moderate party. And everywhere in the European Union (EU), the nationalist and anti-immigration ideas long defended by Mme Le Pen is gaining ground.
The June 6-9 elections in the 27-nation EU will shift the composition of the European Parliament and policymaking in the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, likely to the right and left. far right.
This could have a lasting impact on the EU and increase the chances of Mme Le Pen to win the French presidency in 2027, a long-held dream.
Jordan Bardella, leading candidate of the National Rally in the European Parliament, has the wind in his sails with his promises to limit the free movement of migrants within the open borders of the EU, to ease the pressure of EU on Russia and reduce climate rules.
“We accept that we want to rethink the European model around the idea of nation. Macron’s Europe is a model of the past,” Bardella said at a rally in Paris on Sunday.
In the meantime, Emmanuel Macron’s pro-European movement is in difficulty and its main candidate, Valérie Hayer, is struggling to find a place. This is bad news for Mr Macron as he tries to lead Europe-wide efforts to defend Ukraine and strengthen defense and industry in the EU.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, more popular, is now alongside Mme Hayer at rallies, warning voters that postwar European unity — and democracy itself — is threatened by rising authoritarianism.
“Europe is deadly because the war is knocking on our doors, because the bombs are raining in Ukraine, on democracy, on our values and we know very well that if Russia wins, it will not stop there,” supported Prime Minister Attal at a rally last week.
He added that “Europe cannot rely on the United States to defend it forever and that it needs to protect itself. »
“The challenges are multiplying in the face of climate change, in the face of digital giants, in the face of artificial intelligence and it is only at 27 that we will be able to meet them. »
Protest vote
As European voters choose members of the European Parliament, many make decisions based on national concerns — and in France, many are expected to use their ballots to express their frustration with the management of the economy, the agricultural sector or of the security of a country about to host the Paris Olympic Games.
On the left, polls show a surprising resurgence of the French Socialist Party behind its main candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, who promises more ambitious climate policy and protections for European businesses and workers.
Emmanuel Macron had sidelined France’s once-powerful socialists and traditional conservative Republicans when he rose to power in 2017 by placing himself at the center. But left-wing voters’ frustration with Mr. Macron’s tougher security and immigration policies, as well as the decidedly pro-Palestinian stance of the influential far-left party La France Insoumise, has pushed some to return to the socialists traditional.
The Russian president, Gulf leaders and other oil powers “may very well cut gas or oil supplies, but they cannot stop the wind from blowing in Saint-Nazaire and the sun from shining in Marseille. We will regain our freedom by completing the environmental transformation,” Mr. Glucksmann told supporters last week.
But it is Marine Le Pen, runner-up to Mr Macron in the last two presidential elections, who stands to benefit most from France’s protest vote, as her party did in the last European elections in 2019. She no longer calls for leaving the EU and the euro, but rather aims to reduce its powers and undo it from within.