possible historic triumph of the ultras on 9-J

The latest survey, carried out by IFOP and published last Thursday by The Figaroplace the list at the top Jordan Bardella in 33% of votes. In Ipsos’ work for EuronewsRN reaches 30.7% and in what this same company did for Le Monde 32%. This work, published by the evening newspaper on April 30 in collaboration with the Political Research Center of the prestigious Sciences Po, provides very interesting details due to the size of its sample (10,651 people), which reduces the margin of error to a range between 0 .7 and 1.3. That is to say, the extreme right list was between 30.7% and 33.3%.

If confirmed at the polls, the percentage of votes on the RN list would be the second highest in European elections in France. Only behind the list reached by the union of the center and the right in 1984. Simone Veil headed that candidacy that channeled discontent with the clearly leftist policies of the first years of government of the socialist François Mitterrand that included the nationalization of banks and other large companies and caused a sharp devaluation of the franc, the French currency before the euro.

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A lot of water has passed under the Parisian bridges of the Seine since then, but it has not changed the main motivation of the French to vote in the elections to the European Parliament: the anger against the government that, according to Ipsos, motivates 43% of voters today.

RN’s progress is based on two other pillars: the good work of its candidate and the successful campaign of normalization of the leader of the extreme right, Marine Le Pen. It was she who opted in 2019 for Jordan Bardella, who was 23 years old at the time. Grandson of Italian immigrants, raised by a single mother in Saint-Denis, a municipality neighboring Paris where immigration and crime are rife, Bardella began putting up posters at 17 and is now the president of the RN by vote of the party’s membership. In the 2019 European elections he won 5,286,939 votes (23.34%), beating the list of Macron supporters by very little (22.42%).

Bardella has been criticized for his poor work in the European Parliament although it is true that he can present accurate statistics of attendance and participation in voting. But he is a implacable robot in television debates. Impassive, a good taker of criticism, always impeccable in his blue suit and white shirt, the Government confronted the Prime Minister on Thursday night, Gabriel Attalin an attempt to save the presidential majority campaign.

Yes stop Le MondeAttal, 35 years old, managed to put Bardella on the defensive and caught him in several inconsistencies, the failures of the Lepenist candidate were also noticeable. But, according to an Odoxa survey for The Figaro, Bardella was more convincing for 51% of those who followed the debate while 46% considered the prime minister better. On the eight topics of the debate, the far-right candidate won on emigration (63% to 33%) and by tighter percentages in the defense of industry, energy and the role of nuclear and agriculture. The prime minister was more convincing in economy, environment and in the functioning of the European Union. Both opponents tied when debating Defense and the war in Ukraine.

Since Bardella’s narrow victory in the 2019 European elections, Marine Le Pen garnered more than 13 million votes in the second round of the 2022 presidential elections (41.4% compared to the winner, Emmanuel Macron, 58.5%). And he finished off the move with the best result of the extreme right in the legislative elections of the Fifth Republic, 89 deputies in the National Assembly.

The ‘demonization’ of Le Pen and of his party included the change of the party’s name—demilitarized from Front to Rassemblement (Rassemblement)—and, above all, the purging of anti-Semitic behavior, including the expulsion of the party’s founder and Marine’s father, Jean Marie Le Pen. That is why, last week, Marine Le Pen distanced itself from the German AfDuntil now an ally in the same parliamentary group in Strasbourg, due to statements by one of its leaders about the SS.

The Gaza war has given RN another opportunity for normalization. For the first time in its history, the far right was admitted to participate in a demonstration against anti-Semitism. It took place on November 12, 2023 in Paris and brought together 105,000 people. The civic march was called by the presidents of the Senate, Gérard Larcher (conservative) and of the Assembly, Yaël Baun (centrist). Two former presidents of the Republic participated, Nicolas Sarkozy (right) and François Hollande (socialist), two former prime ministers, Manuel Valls (socialist) and Édouard Philippe (Centrist) and, at the end of the procession, Le Pen and Bardella.

This conflict has allowed Le Pen to establish her image of enemy of political Islam, that is, of Islam as an ideology beyond religion. In France today, and despite the excesses of the Israeli army in Gaza, public opinion is overwhelmingly with Israel and against Hamas. Only the extreme left of France Insoumise (LFI) has aligned itself with Palestine, in the wake of its leader, Jean Luc Melenchonwhich has been seeking for years to replace the votes of the working class (immigrated to the RN) with those of minorities, particularly those from Islamic immigration.

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The consequence of all this is the expansion of the electoral base of the extreme right. It is no longer only the party of residents in peripheral France, those who have precarious and low-skilled jobs, and retirees returned from Algeria after independence. According to the IFOP survey, 41% of active French people between 35 and 49 years old are determined to vote for the RN, as well as 50% of employees and even 41% of those who passed high school.

Macron, the president of the Republic, who defeated her twice in 2017 and 2022, has tried to re-present the elections to the European Parliament as a fight between pro-Europeans and nationalists. Hence his speech about Europe. Only now, the RN is no longer against the euro, nor does it want to take France out of the EU. Raise the primacy of national legislation or the recovery of powers in favor of the States. Something half-baked fuzzy, but, for the same reason, more difficult to attack.

Furthermore, Macron has had an unexpected competitor in the pro-European camp. To the point that her candidate, Valerie Hayerwho chairs the liberal group (Renew) of the European Chamber, runs the risk of being surpassed by the philosopher Raphael Glucksmannwho leads the coalition list between his mini-party, Public plazaand the Socialist Party, once the hegemonic formation of the French left.

Hayer, the standard bearer of Macron’s supporters ‘quotes’ between 16% and 18%. Glucksmann oscillates in polls between 13% and 15%. The latter has a dynamic of growth that makes it hope to snatch second place at the polls. In any case, its result will be a success compared to 2019 (6.2%).

The rest of the data anticipated by the polls confirm that the classic right, affiliated with the EPP, continues without raising its head. The leading list François Xavier Bellamy It is stable (7.5%), one point lower than the 2019 result. Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, who heads the Reconquista candidacy, completes the strength of the extreme right (6%).

At the other end of the political spectrum, the list of La Francia Insumisa, which forms a group in Strasbourg with Podemos, is around 7% in the polls. On the contrary, the surveys They look bad for environmentalists, which have been deflated to 5%, the limit to have representation in the European Parliament. Furthermore, the fragility of his candidacy is the greatest among those who can obtain a seat because only 40% of his voters claim to be sure of their decision. On the contrary, 64% of potential LFI voters claim to be sure of your decision. The most firm are those who are going to vote for RN, 85% of whom claim to be sure of their choice.