Don’t believe what you’ve been told about the elections in France. It’s true that the far-Left finished in a surprise first place through the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition with President Macron’s centrist party coming second.
It’s correct, also, that the insurgent National Rally (RN) party from the populist Right trailed behind.
As I write, the horse trading has begun to form a new government in such extraordinary circumstances.
Yet, despite the headline results, and for all the smug media reports of her demise, the real winner from the weekend is the 55-year-old RN leader Marine Le Pen, who survives to fight another day.
Despite being hysterically demonised by her opponents as ‘far-Right’ – if not actually fascist – the poll saw RN consolidate its position in parliament.
Emmanuel Macron is under increasing pressure to address the French public amid concerns a political deadlock will make the nation ungovernable
French Rassemblement National (RN) far-right party’s leader Marine Le Pen arriving at the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party headquarters today
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of French far-left opposition party La France Insoumise arriving at the LFI party headquarters today
Egged on by pre-election polls suggesting it would win an outright majority, Le Pen was probably guilty of over-promising, eventually beaten by a grossly undemocratic voting pact between Macron and the Left.
Yet from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success. Le Pen will now escape responsibility for the vacuum at the heart of French politics, not to mention the toxic mess that’s bound to follow.
Forty thousand police are on standby after disturbances on Sunday night, with more trouble widely expected.
Even if Le Pen didn’t win outright, the party won more than ten million votes – around a third of the total.
Her square-jawed protegé Jordan Bardella, 28, did well, too, broadening the reach of the party towards the young. The Left-wing NFP, meanwhile, remains a shaky coalition made up of people who loathe one another – and whose ambition to rule France looks absurdly optimistic.
For them, the winner’s trophy is a chalice of pure poison.
Le Pen’s continued presence will enrage the right-on Parisian blob. The establishment regards her with hatred.
She speaks for a hard-pressed, working-class France that barely exists inside the smarter arrondisements of Paris.
Supporters of The Ecologists-EELV green party celebrate following the first results of the second round of France’s legislative election during the party’s election night event in Paris on July 7, 2024
PARIS: French CRS riot police run past burning bicycles during clashes with demonstrators
People gather in front of ‘Le Monument a la Republique’ statue during an election night rally following the first results of the second round of France’s legislative election at Republique Square in Paris on July 7, 2024
Le Pen herself attended none of the right schools. Yet her policies resonate across the country. She wants to stop uncontrolled migration, insists that immigrants integrate and doesn’t much like Brussels, although Frexit isn’t on the table.
To be sure, her party has dubious roots. It emerged from the National Front (FN) founded by her 96-year-old father, Jean-Marie, an ultra-nationalist who once disgracefully called the Holocaust ‘a detail of history’.
But the daughter took decisive action and patricidally expelled him from the party, rebranding the old FN as the ‘National Rally’, a TikTok-savvy, populist insurrection against the French political and media establishment. Le Pen is still not given proper credit for the transformation of her movement. I have under-estimated her myself. Moreover, she has resilience – an essential political power.
The other clear winner is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 72, the ultra-Left disruptor who, with more than 70 parliamentary deputies now under his control, has found himself a leading figure in the bizarre political tango transfixing the world.
He is a real extremist – unlike Le Pen – and is arguably the most dangerous man in France. Sometimes described as the French Jeremy Corbyn (Britain’s bearded Marxist has campaigned for him in France), Mélenchon is in fact a far more worrying influence than Britain’s washed-up political fossil.
He is planning a list of measures that would add at least 150billion euros (£126billion) to the French budget, a crazed prospect that could easily trigger a collapse in the bond markets – disastrous for a nation already heavily in debt.
A mesmerising speaker, Mélenchon is a veritable demagogue – and exceptionally disagreeable. There’s a notorious video clip of him abusing a police officer during a search of his office after allegations of misconduct.
Mélenchon has built his ultra-Left coalition by allying with anti-Semites and the Islamist Left, and even with the violent ‘Antifa’-aligned ‘Black Bloc’. Last week saw him ranting that obesity is the fault of globalisation.
Macron has refused the resignation of his protégé Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (pictured) and has instructed him to stay in place as the government is left in limbo
PARIS: A protester throws a projectile near burning bicycles during clashes with police after the exit polls
He refused to call for an end to the violence during recent riots but instead asked the rabble to avoid schools and community centres. Perhaps President Macron wasn’t so far off when he recently warned of civil war.
Mélenchon has already announced his intention to be prime minister and then implement an economic and political project which would throw the country into chaos.
Backed by his foot soldiers in parliament, he is demanding a freeze on the price of food, fuel and other necessities.
He wants a general wage increase, a reduction in the pension age and completely open borders which could result in a new wave of migrants heading for England in small boats.
The world is assembling in Paris for the Olympic Games starting in two weeks, a spectacle that was supposed be a crowning photo opportunity for the monarch-like Macron.
Yet his stock could hardly be lower. It is Macron’s decision to call a general election – a vain, petulant gamble – that has unleashed this chaos and crippled the remaining three years of his tenure in the process.
Now, all eyes are on the unfolding political shambles – and the impending abyss into which France may plunge.
Still commanding huge support around the country, Le Pen has never been better placed for a run at the Elysee Palace as president.
All she has to do is wait – and watch as her opponents self-destruct.
÷ Jonathan Miller is author of France, A Nation On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
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