Far right's role in France's lurch to the extremes

Macron's centrists set to be squeezed out by both left and right as France goes to the polls

RN party president Jordan Bardella, third right, and France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, second right, taking part in a televised debate ahead of France's snap elections. AFP

France's far right is stoking fears of immigrants taking more than their fair share of the country's generous social welfare system as it hopes for a resounding success in Sunday's parliamentary election.

Some of its proposals, such as denying the right to French nationality to foreigners' children born on French soil, have sparked accusations of racism, while other ideas target voters who may not view themselves as racist but respond to promises that access to dwindling public services can be reserved for them.

“A foreigner, an illegal, who arrives in our country benefits from a whole spectrum of services and care. We will eliminate state medical aid,” the far-right National Rally's president Jordan Bardella has declared on the stump. “So we will reserve social benefits for French people, and believe me, it will save a lot of money for the state's finances.”

The success of the National Rally (RN) is now fully “normalised”, says French media, as opposed to its ancestor the National Front. It was shunned for decades by the mainstream over its historic associations with anti-Semitism and opposition to Second World War hero Charles de Gaulle.

Yet the fact that close to 40 per cent of France voted for the far right in recent elections has left many in France with a feeling of deep unease: is their country actually tempted by the racist undertones of the political insurgents?

Media commentators have tiptoed around the issue out of fear of appearing to disregard popular sentiment and further fuel anger against the Paris-based elites.

The answer, experts say, is both yes and no.

French President Emmanuel Macron waits for the arrival of a guest at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 26, 2024. REUTERS / Benoit Tessier

“For decades, the state has been closing down public services including hospitals, family allowance collection centres and train stations in lower-income areas,” said Clara Deville, a researcher in sociology at France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

“When there are difficulties in accessing social services, it's easier for people to feel anger against the weakest, rather than against the state,” Ms Deville told The National.

“That doesn't exclude racism as a possible factor. But the RN vote can't be explained by just saying that people are simply ignorant or racist.”

The RN's 28-year-old Mr Bardella, who two years ago replaced Marine Le Pen as party leader, says immigration must be halted and borders closed to stop foreigners taking state aid away from citizens and fuelling crime.

Such ideas may be “absolutely false”, says Ms Deville, but they are popular among people who feel isolated and snubbed by Emmanuel Macron, dubbed as the “president of the rich”.

The RN currently leads in the polls at 36 per cent, followed by a leftist coalition, the New Popular Front (29 per cent), and Mr Macron's liberals (21 per cent).

The suggestion that foreigners steal from the French has been a key component of the RN's messaging despite the fact that health provision for illegal immigrants is already highly restricted and costs relatively little to the state.

Divisions galore

Similarly, most foreigners have to wait five years to access the minimum state stipend for the unemployed, which starts at €635 a month, despite Mr Bardella's claims that they are an automatic right on arrival.

“The RN's proposals appear completely beside the point,” said Ms Deville.

More recently, Mr Bardella has promised he would stop granting French citizenship to foreign children born on French soil, a right which was introduced in France in the 16th century.

In addition to going against the French constitution, this measure may create foreign enclaves in France that slip out of the state’s control, analysts have warned.

“The RN is trying to create further divisions among the low-income population,” said Ms Deville.

Mr Bardella has also vowed to bar dual citizens from jobs described as “strategic”, such as defence, in what has been described by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal as a “humiliating” proposal that goes against the principle of equality among citizens.

Currently there are no restrictions in place for dual citizens, though foreigners are barred from certain jobs in the public sector.

The role of racism in the RN vote is the elephant in the room, wrote researcher Felicien Faury in a recent and much-talked about book, Ordinary Voters, about the far-right's popularity in its heartland of south-east France.

It argues that French society as a whole is deeply entrenched with racist bias and that the RN vote is one of many ways of expressing it that are specifically targeted against France's large Muslim population.

Such racism and intolerance is rising in France, fuelled by the war in Gaza and far-right ideas in public debate, France’s human rights commission, the CNCDH, said in an annual report published on Thursday.

RN's proposals to restrict the rights of immigrants is in “frontal opposition to the principles of equality, fraternity and freedom” and will embolden racist opinions, it said.

It found reports of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim acts increased by 284 per cent and 29 per cent respectively in the past year, while other types of racist acts increased by 21 per cent.

The high scores of the RN are in part the result of French society moving to the right, argues Mr Faury.

“On a national scale, the successes of the RN can be explained by the progressive radicalisation of the right-wing electorate, particularly the lower-income ones.

“It is the disappointed right which above all fuelled the [RN] success more than the disappointed left.”

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This also explains why voters who think there needs to be more state services, historically an idea more associated with the left, are now more tempted by the far right.

“When you listen to far-left and far-right voters, they say roughly the same thing but their values are different,” said Luc Rouban, a political scientist affiliated to Sciences Po University. “RN voters are liberal. They want more public service but less bureaucracy and not too much tax. That's very different from the left.”

Mr Rouban downplayed the issue of racism, pointing at research published by the CNCDH that shows tolerance has been rising in France.

Protesters hold an anti-far right banner during a rally in Paris. AP

“We are not in a country that is becoming more racist,” he told The National. “People feel stuck in a system that nobody controls any more. There is a feeling of loss of control.”

Squeezed by extremes

President Macron has portrayed his shock decision to call for snap elections in the wake of the European election on June 9 as a way of fighting extremist views and giving power back to the people.

At the same time he has chastised those who vote “more based on emotion than on information”. He warned that could lead to “civil war” – an expression he used at least five times in close to two hours of interview in a recent podcast with entrepreneur Matthieu Stefani.

As France heads into elections this weekend, Mr Macron's decision to dissolve the National Assembly seems to have done little to fight extremes and has instead left commentators scrambling to understand what could happen the day after the election.

If, as predicted, the far right gets the highest number of lawmakers without achieving an absolute majority, Mr Macron may be forced to choose a new prime minister who is close to the RN but not Mr Bardella. He has said he would only become prime minister if at least 289 MPs are elected out of 577.

But this scenario risks triggering governance issues due their profoundly different political views. “It's all very uncertain,” said Mr Rouban.

Despite his many media interventions to explain his positions, Mr Macron's popularity remains at an all-time low and some candidates closely affiliated to him such as outgoing National Assembly president Yael Braun Pivet are campaigning without his photo on their posters.

In his podcast interview, Mr Macron explained his low popularity by admitting failures at cracking down against crime and at correcting social inequalities.

The success of the RN lies in its ability to attract people “who are angry” but do not view themselves as extremists, he added, attempting to walk a fine line between showing empathy while also stoking fear around the consequences of such a choice.

Ni-ni last round

The RN remains a party that is outside of the “Republic's values”, said Mr Macron, pointing at senior party members who make a difference between French people who are only French “on paper” – a reference to immigrants and their children, including those who took part in last year's summer riots – and “real” French people.

As a result the centrist president has declared his allies should shun a choice between the RN and the NPF, which is anchored by the former Communists and other far-left factions in La France Insoumise. This is known in the media as the “ni-ni” stance.

The first round on Sunday is expected to see dozens of RN and NPF candidates and set up more run-offs between the two camps a week later.

It remains to be seen whether lambasting the RN's orbit of racism can succeed in scaring voters back to the mainstream.