French parliamentary elections shaping up to be choice between far right National Rally and leftwing Popular Front
Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right Rassemblement National party: There is a strong anti-elite sentiment behind the RN’s rise. Photograph: Denis CharletMore than two decades ago, Loic Laveissiere remembers protesting against Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front as a 17 year old, back when it was widely ostracised as an extreme right-wing party on the fringes.
Polls show the anti-immigration, Eurosceptic RN remains the most popular party heading into the elections. Its main challenger is the Popular Front, a broad coalition of left-wing parties, including Raphael Glucksmann’s centre-left party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s more radical France Unbowed, who quickly banded together to try to keep Le Pen’s party from power.
“It is a difficult moment for the French people. We have two choices, between the extremes,” says Jerome Guitton, a 62-year-old Parisian out running errands earlier this week. The outcome of the election could be a hung parliament where “nobody can do anything”, which he says would be a problem. “I’m okay with Macron. People are expecting too much from the government and in my opinion they must think what they can do, not what the state can do for them,” he says.
A rising star who came up through the RN’s youth wing, Bardella will become prime minister if the far right win a majority, while Le Pen steers things in the background. Bardella is in some respects the culmination of a years-long campaign by Le Pen to bring her party into the mainstream. The young man from a rough north Paris suburb is the new face of the far right, without the baggage of the Le Pen name that may still put off some voters.
“The extreme right has not been part of any government in France since 1945, so many people within this stream of political life see themselves as pariahs, excluded people. I think that quite a few of them want to take vengeance, not by attacking people, but by enacting legislation that goes against the very core of our values and our constitution,” Camus says.
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