Marine Le Pen and the Return of History

The last European elections in France were held on Sunday 9 June 2024. After an overwhelming although fairly predictable victory for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN), the party’s president Jordan Bardella took to Twitter to demand that Emmanuel Macron call new legislative elections in France (roughly the equivalent of parliamentary elections in the UK). He was probably almost as surprised as everyone else when, barely half an hour later, Macron announced that he was doing exactly that.

Although Macron was reportedly profoundly hurt by the results of the European election, the fact that he called the legislative elections so quickly indicates that he was probably half-expecting the results. His stated goal with this snap legislative election was “political clarification” by enabling the people to express themselves through the ballot box; it is a noble sentiment, but I find it difficult to believe he is so out of touch that he believed he could win this legislative election. Politicians are notoriously addicted to polling data, and he can hardly have missed the strength of opposition to his presidency over the last two years. I find it more plausible that Macron was taking a political gamble; based on the polls, he might have been assuming that the RN would be unable to form a majority in the assemblée nationale (the lower house of the French Parliament), which means that they wouldn't be able to govern effectively. Could allowing the RN a hollow victory in the legislative elections, thereby illustrating their inability to form alliances and implement their programme in a hung parliament, be enough to put off voters from electing an RN president in three years’ time?

The political landscape has been shaken up significantly in the intervening weeks with the parties of the left forming a fairly wide coalition, which was a sine qua non for any scenario where France avoids an RN government. After the first-round vote, again much to the advantage of the RN, the majority of third-placed candidates withdrew from the race and asked their supporters to vote for anyone in a position to beat the RN candidate.

In the end, the legislative elections saw the RN win 143 seats in the assemblée nationale; this was an improvement on their results in the 2022 legislative elections, but the coalition of the left (NFP) won 180 seats and a coalition of centrist parties (including Macron’s party) won 163. Although unfavourable to Macron’s party, this election has actually seen a swing to the left and not the RN takeover that many feared. Jordan Bardella will not become Prime Minister and the RN will be unable to pass any of their most controversial proposed legislation.

Yet despite their limited political success and near-universal opposition to the RN among academics, journalists, and the political class, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard pundits refer to 1930s and 1940s literature in recent weeks. Political journalists and historians see neo-fascists marching in the streets of Paris and cite Marc Bloch and Stephan Zweig’s The World Of Yesterday, which describes the rise of fascism in pre-WW2 Europe — but are the historical parallels justified?

The RN is by nature xenophobic (or at least nativist and discriminatory) — it remains fundamentally an anti-immigration party — but is it fair to accuse them of being fascists (as much of the French far left does)? Fascist parties and movements have come in many forms, but they have always had certain things in common: extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and liberalism, and a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites. The current iteration of Le Pen’s party does not generally espouse these types of beliefs (notwithstanding its economic and cultural anti-liberalism).

I’m not a fan of semantic drift when it pertains to ideologies such as fascism — not only do hyperbolic accusations make it harder to identify real fascism where it exists, they are also easily refuted by supporters of the RN, who understandably feel aggrieved about being tarred with the same brush. I want to explore what the RN really is rather than simply smear them with facile labels.

The problem when trying to evaluate the potential risk of a Le Pen presidency or a Bardella premiership, is that it is very difficult to know what the party actually stands for. Throughout the period of “dédiabolisation” (Le Pen’s efforts to clean up the party’s image since she replaced her controversial father as its leader) their politics can best be characterised as cynical and opportunistic.

This change in orientation was particularly marked after Florian Philippot was hired as the then National Front’s head of strategy and communication in 2012. Le Pen’s rhetoric suddenly put increasing emphasis on economic nationalism and protectionism, ostensibly to defend ordinary people’s purchasing power, and she started demonising “globalists” and the “elites” (in addition to immigrants, of course). This tactic, lifted straight from the populist playbook, has been successful all over the world and there was no reason not to expect it to work in France.

Philippot has since left the party and devolved into complete conspiratorial crackpottery, but the strategy he helped devise has consistently enabled the RN to siphon off votes from left-wing parties — mainly working-class voters who felt betrayed by the centre-left Socialist Party of the early 2000s or who are put off by the extreme-left communist and anti-capitalist parties’ revolutionary discourse and stance on immigration.

The RN’s hypocrisy can be clearly seen in the discrepancy between its manifesto, its voting record and the positions its leaders have adopted in the media in recent years. Despite its claim to support the purchasing power of ordinary citizens, the RN voted against a living wage bill in the European Parliament; despite claiming to defend gender rights, the RN abstained from voting on a French law aiming to protect women against sexual violence, and there are many such examples.

Like many people, Le Pen was critical of police brutality during the yellow vest movement, going as far as claiming that the government specifically ordered the violent repression of demonstrations. But point three of its 22-point manifesto clearly states that it intends to institute “a presumption of self-defence for police forces,” which is hardly likely to curb police brutality.

Marine Le Pen has softened the party's stance on the European Union following the Brexit debacle, no longer calling for an outright Frexit but rather a roadmap for renegotiating EU treaties, the Schengen Agreement and the CAP, which would effectively lead to a break-up of the EU and its eventual replacement with a “Europe of nations.” Whether or not Le Pen would actually be able to renegotiate these treaties is debatable, but to do so, she would have to ally with people with less than impeccable democratic credentials — which somewhat undermines her sanitised image.

The RN’s economic policy and vision for the EU is also very off-putting for the business community, so with the prospect of having to govern on the horizon, Jordan Bardella was invited to talk with the French employers’ union, Medef, where he was compelled to roll back many of his manifesto promises to avoid spooking the markets. One might ponder the state of political discourse in a country where a politician can gain credibility by promising not to implement their manifesto, but maybe that’s a conversation for another day. Let’s assume for now that the RN does intend to implement its policy proposals.

Although a Liz Truss-style currency collapse is unlikely given that France is tied to 19 other states in the Eurozone, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that ratings agencies downgrade France again if the RN comes to power, with devastating consequences for France’s ability to service its debt, foreign direct investment, and unemployment.

Returning to the RN’s main hobby horse, immigration, its policies are a hodgepodge of sometimes inapplicable measures that would have little or no impact on immigration figures or public finances, but which will nevertheless erode minority rights and stigmatise a significant percentage of the population.

Macron has warned several times that the RN’s policies would lead to civil war. This may seem over the top — especially coming from someone whose policies on fuel taxes and pensions have caused such division — but the harm they would cause to the most underprivileged people in the country (not to mention to Republican norms) is reason enough for many people to be worried about an RN government.

Their flagship measure, “national preference,” would give French nationals priority access to social housing and employment. Even if you think that discrimination by nationality is morally justifiable, it is worth bearing in mind that this would also hurt many French citizens, specifically the children of non-French nationals born in France.

The RN also wants to systematically deport illegal immigrants and put an end to family reunification — a cruel policy that is reminiscent of Trump’s treatment of illegal immigrants. Civil war seems hyperbolic, but such discriminatory policies are likely to lead to large-scale demonstrations and civil disobedience, for example from civil servants who are forced to apply “national preference” in social housing applications.

The RN wants to end the rule of jus soli, commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, which affords French nationality to anyone born in the territory. This is an odd one because, although transparently targeting second- or third-generation citizens of African descent, it would make it harder for any French person to assert their right to citizenship, requiring them to provide proof that their parents were French-born. People who are currently considered French may fall foul of this reform, meaning that they would also be targeted by any national preference policy that the RN manages to implement.

Marine Le Pen’s inconsistency is even on display regarding the issue of nationality; in 2017 Le Pen stated that she wanted to “abolish dual nationality for non-Europeans,” again obviously targeting citizens of African descent. This policy has since been revised to only refusing access to strategic positions to people with dual nationality (although some RN members of parliament seem not to have received the memo about this policy change). People with dual nationality are already screened before taking sensitive positions in the civil service, so this is yet another dog-whistle to nationalists with no tangible benefits.

Amazingly, I am 1700 words in, and I still haven’t discussed the potential risk of electing a 28-year-old prime minister who has never served in public office in France and has never held a job outside of the RN. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the persistent smell of corruption; the RN received a heavy fine in a case of fraud and embezzlement in connection with the 2012 legislative elections. In a separate affair, Marine Le Pen, her father, and twenty-five other members of the RN will go on trial this autumn on charges of setting up “a concerted and deliberate […] system of misappropriation” of funds allocated by the European Union amounting to €6.8 million for the period between 2009 and 2017.

Finally, I’m sorry to go there, but Godwin’s Law deems that I must: remember that Hitler was democratically elected before using his position to force the Reichstag to change the laws, give himself dictatorial powers, suspend freedom of expression, and arrest political opponents. To be clear: I am not saying Le Pen is like Hitler, but no one can be sure for certain what politicians will do once in power, and it is unsurprising that people are nervous about the RN when you see where they come from. Sometimes prudence is the better part of valour. Take this editorial from a German Jewish newspaper in 1931:

“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check . . . and they clearly do not want to go down that road.”

Marine Le Pen has done a good job of sweeping it under the rug, but she still joined the party under her father, who has been sentenced several times for inciting racial hatred as well as being allegedly involved in the torture of enemy soldiers during the Algerian war. Scepticism about the sincerity of Marine Le Pen’s republican ideals is understandable considering she had no issue working for the party when it was overtly antisemitic and full of neo-Nazis. Over the past decade, they have watered down their policy proposals for electoral reasons, and they continue to purge neo-fascists from the party, yet they still have many candidates who have no qualms about making racist statements, and abroad they foster ties with autocrats who seek to stifle freedom of expression, gag the press, and destroy institutional norms.

A minority government under Jordan Bardella would be hamstrung by Parliament, but if they continue their ascent and capture the presidency in 2027, Marine Le Pen will be able to invoke article 16 of the French Constitution. This provision allows the President to take full control of executive functions and assume some legislative powers to respond effectively to situations that threaten the nation's integrity, independence, or the functioning of its institutions. Maybe it is not a coincidence that the RN regularly tries to undermine the conseil constitutionnel (constitutional council), one of the sole remaining ramparts against presidential authority under the French constitution.

Many have argued that the concentration of powers is one of the weaknesses of the Fifth Republic, but few Gaullists or Socialists would want an RN government to write the constitution of the Sixth Republic with the evident risk of rule by plebiscite that would represent.

As the old saying goes, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”, and it is not hard to imagine that a strong enough opposition to Le Pen’s election (or any other significant crisis) might be incentive enough for her to trigger article 16. And then all bets are off, even for a gambler like Macron.