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CWA # 1389, 23 July 2024
NIAS Europe Studies
France: Rise of Far-right triggers political crisis

  Padmashree Anandhan

By Padmashree Anandhan

Introduction
During 06 and 09 June, the tenth European Parliament elections voting was held in France. In this total, 81 members competed in the European Parliament for 720 seats. The voting was held by proportional representation with a closed list which means candidates would be elected as per their pre-stated position on the list. For example, if a party wins six seats, the first six candidates can take the seats while in the open list, a voter can vote for an individual candidate from the party’s list. For 2024, there were 38 lists with 3,078 candidates battling for 81 seats.

In the held elections, the right-wing Rassemblement National (RN) won the majority with 31.4 per cent, followed by French President, Emmanuel Macron's Besoin d'Europe alliance, 14.6 per cent and the centre-left Réveiller l'Europe alliance with 13.8 per cent. As a result, Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, triggering early legislative elections.

Profile of the lead candidates
For the major parties, most of the lead candidates were incumbent members of the Parliament, which includes:
Valérie Hayer from Renaissance. She is the President of Renew Europe in the European Parliament and joined Macron’s Party in 2017 for his first presidential campaign. In the 2019 elections, she won 23 seats (22.42 per cent) out of 705 seats.
François-Xavier Bellamy from Les Républicains, joined the party in 2019. He won eight seats (8.48 per cent) in the 2019 elections which was reduced from 20 seats in the 2014 elections. He supports the movement against same-sex marriage.
Jordan Bardella representing RN, became a member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2009. He won 23 seats (23.34 per cent) in the 2019 elections and does not support the European energy market and migration.
Raphaël Glucksmann from the Socialists-Place Publique, is the founder of Place Publique and won six (6.19 per cent) seats in the 2019 elections. His priorities include military aid to Ukraine, developing the EU defence, taxing the wealthy and phasing out fossil fuels.Manon Aubry from the La France Insoumise party won six (6.31 per cent) seats and aimed to create a united left wing but was denied.  Marie Toussaint from the Greens, became the MEP in 2019 with 13 seats (13.48 per cent). She is well known for suing the French state to respect climate commitments in 2019.  She pledges to “save the climate and face the social emergency” and bring new models.

How they voted
The RN party polled for the first time in 93 per cent of 35,000 French communities which is 80 per cent of the parliamentary constituencies. It superseded the ruling coalition of Macron by 2:1 ratio across France and secured votes beyond the Mediterranean coast and northern Rust belt in 7:1 ratio. Majority of votes for RN came from rural area, big cities while suburbs continued to vote for Macron’s allies, left-wing showcasing the rural-urban divide. Another key trend in the election was higher the abstention provided better result for RN. However, there was no clarity on how the higher turnout converted into voter support, but historically, many voters who chose to tactically avoid or vote against the far right had weakened.

RN party has traditionally outscored in areas with lower levels of income and education. This was due to the change in its agenda which focused more on mainstream concerns such as high inflation and falling living standards which helped broaden its voter base.
 

Performance of major parties in the last three-year EU Parliamentary elections

Major Parties & EP seats

2019 (74)

2014 (74)

2009 (72)

Renaissance (Renew) – Centre/Liberal

21

7

6

Les Républicains (EPP) – Right wing

7

20

29

Rassemblement National (ID) – Far Right

22

24

3

Socialists - Place publique (S&D)

6

13

14

La France Insoumise (GUE/NGL) – Radical Left

6

4

5

Greens (Greens)

12

6

14

First, increasing voter turnout. From 2000 to 2024, the voter turnout across Europe witnessed a gradual increase from 40.6 per cent to 51.5 per cent.  The increase has been possible due to the 2019 electoral reform which modified the number of constituencies. Earlier, European elections in France were previously divided into eight regional electoral constituencies, the voting system now only comprises a single national constituency. This has allowed voters to better identify candidates and the issues at stake.

Second, apart from the conversion of voter abstentions, there is a breakthrough with a clear shift of votes to far-right as the right-wing declines since 2014. The socialist remains one of the consistent parties holding more than 10 seats on average. The Greens witnessed a falling curve of votes while the Centre except for 1979 and 2019 has not outperformed.

Third, the far-right vote in the previous EU election gained but the seats lost resulted from higher unemployment, low life expectancy but the group made it through the threshold via large welfare payments.

Fourth, influence of income groups. the strengths of the far-right group rooted from town which had less than 100,000, less education levels compared to the suburbs. 40 per cent on an average was taken by RN. While Macron’s centre party earned votes from pro-business and pro-wealth policies began to diminish as the discontent of the working population spread over high tax rates.

Issues in voting
Pessimistic towards economy
A survey showed that the French are very pessimistic about the future, with 64 per cent of respondents predicting the worsening of the European economy in the coming months. Including 35 per cent indicated, it will worsen significantly. Additionally, 55 per cent of those recorded deterioration of the EU’s place on the international stage. This increased by 11 points compared with the June 2022 survey. The French see the EU, as more of a strength than a weakness in scientific and technological innovation (62 per cent against 22 per cent) or “peace in Europe” (54 per cent against 31 per cent). Many were found to be sceptical about the EUs role amid economic challenges (37 per cent against 42 per cent). They neither seem hopeful about its role in the fight against discrimination or social issues. 

Battle against Far-right and the pro-European flag
The Renaissance (Renew) party headed by Macron visibly criticised the far-right and called it to be incoherent in its politics. This was a similar trend after his two presidential wins and the 2019 European elections. During one of his campaign, Macron said: “Let’s act, let’s do, let’s change our habits, and demonstrate that we can change things and people’s everyday lives.” Macron placed his support for the European project at the heart of Macron’s political offering. Since, his rise in politics in 2017. Support for the EU has long provided the sharpest contrast with the far-right. For these reasons, the president has lately doubled down on his pro-Europeanism, pushing for EU solutions to domestic policy questions, from immigration to climate to energy. Even amid a difficult domestic situation, this has been Macron’s default option. This can be seen in his response to recent farmer protests where Macron pointed to the EU’s common agricultural policy and trade policy as a remedy to the crisis.

Adopting a French way to address immigration
RN and several competing parties, Socialists - Place publique, La France Insoumise, and Les Républicains focused majorly on Migration. They stressed reducing the number of immigrants and tightening rules. They pledged to make an individual solution criticising the EU’s Migration Pact. One of the MEP said: "The asylum and migration pact does not allow us to provide a solution to better protect our borders.”

Vouching for the youth
Promoting youth in leadership is another leading campaign of Macron's party where he showcased having a prime minister and foreign minister between the ages of 34 and 38. It was one of the youngest ever in the Fifth Republic. Apart from the Renaissance, the Left, Left-Wing and the Socialists targeted the youth and absentee voters to push their support. Valérie Hayer said: "I call upon the young people of France: I see the risk of abstention, don't let anyone decide your future for you.”

Pro-Ukraine approach
Macron maintained his pro-enlargement, pro-Ukraine approach which helped in making him appear the clearest choice for those who want to vote against the far-right. He also reasserted France’s support for EU enlargement which he has stressed earlier in May 2023. In his first strip to Ukraine as minister said: “…is and will remain France’s priority.” He affirmed the same through his visit to Germany and Poland showcasing France’s interest close cooperation between Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw.

Targeting Macron and Renaissance
RN party and Le Pen during their campaigns strived to focus away from being Eurosceptic and pitcher broad as a defender of family incomes, jobs and French identity.
Le Pen, called Macron a president "under siege," highlighted the criticism he received from the farmers and protests against his unpopular reforms. Bardella also focused his campaign, on targeting Macron.

Broadened into mainstream concerns
The key issues focused on by the party would be crime and immigrants. The RN took a hard stance on law and order and crime rates. Housing construction and reduction of long commutes were among other issues targeting the worker community who have faced fuel price hikes in the past two years. Having household spending power was one of the priorities listed by Bardella followed by RN pledges to slash VAT on electricity, heating oil, and petrol and the revision of 2024 budget also helped in gaining more votes.

Conclusion: The Road Ahead
1. Weakening of the presidency
France along with Germany are two critical players in EU decision making. Both being plunged into internal political chaos the impasse could last for months impairing its EU equation. Macron has held the largest presence on the European front in terms of trade, industrial defence plan and striving for strategic autonomy for the EU. The loss in the EU elections would mean more distraction into domestic issues and a fragmented parliament. This is likely to disturb the stability to the French leadership and political landscape.

2. Lot of checks and balances for France and the EU
The French system is modelled in a way where the influence of the far-right can be checked off through the Senate, Macron, the French administration and the 2027 presidential elections. The decision remains between the teaming of mainstream and left parties against far-right. Although, this may be far from possible for 2027. French political landscape is expected to be divided and a hard task pushing France, the EU and the international towards a deterring trend. This would be mainly due to the weakening of Macron’s position making it challenging for France to be an “ambitious player” in the EU. Henceforth the worry in the EU will be on the impact of French politics on Council of the EU policies.

References
Tara Varma, “The European Parliament elections have upended French politics,” The Brookings, 12 June 2024
Sophia Khatsenkova, “EU elections: French candidates enter final stretch of campaign,” Euronews, 03 June 2024
Raphaëlle Aubert, Manon Romain, Maxime Ferrer and Romain Imbach, “Map: The 2024 European election results in France, town by town,” Le Monde, 10 June 2024
Pierre Breteau, “European elections: Two graphs to view the French and EU-wide results since 1979,” Le Monde, 12 June 2024
Victor Goury-Laffont, “French far right obliterates Macron’s party in EU election,” Politico, 09 June 2024
Michael C Behrent, “France’s Changing Political Landscape,” Discourse, 20 June 2024
Barbara Moens and Jacopo Barigazzi, “French election gridlock means yet more uncertainty for Europe,” Politico, 09 June 2024

 

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