Marine Le Pen’s France’s far right is in pole position after the first round of parliamentary elections that confirmed their dominance in French politics and brought them to the gates of power.
Supporters of Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) cheered as she said the president’s “Macronist bloc has been all but wiped out”.
RN won 33.1 percent of the vote, with a left-wing alliance behind on 28 percent, and the Macron camp behind on 20.76 percent.
“I aim to be prime minister for all the French people, if the French give us their votes,” said 28-year-old RN party leader Jordan Bardella.
Never before has the far right won the first round of a French parliamentary election. What Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella want is an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. But, seat projections for next Sunday’s second round run-off votes suggest they may fall short.
Without an absolute majority, France will have a hung parliament and RN will be unable to push through its plans for immigration, tax cuts and law and order.
There was no need for Emmanuel Macron to call this election, but after RN’s victory in European elections he said it was the “most responsible solution”.
Politics in France upended after Le Pen’s victory
It was a gamble that now threatens to turn the political order on its head, with 10.6 million French citizens voting for RN and some of the conservative Republicans who backed them.
For the 46-year-old leader of France, Sunday’s first-round parliamentary election was a humiliation every bit as personal as his stunning rise to the presidency as a fresh-faced outsider seven years ago, Politico says.
“He called the snap vote, after a disastrous defeat at the hands of the far right in June’s European election, with one aim in mind: to halt France’s lurch to the extremes in its tracks. He achieved the opposite,” it adds.
Turnout at 66.7 percent was the highest for a parliamentary first round since 1997, reflecting the pivotal nature of a vote that came after a lightning-quick campaign of barely three weeks.
Who is Marine Le Pen and her policies for France
Le Pen, a member of the National Rally (RN; previously the National Front, FN), served as its president from 2011 to 2021. She is the youngest daughter of former party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Le Pen has led a movement of “de-demonisation of the National Front” to soften its image, including limited expulsion of members accused of racism, antisemitism or Pétainism. She expelled her father from the party in August 2015, after he made fresh controversial statements.
While liberalizing some political positions of the party by revoking its opposition to same-sex partnerships, its opposition to unconditional abortions, and its support for the death penalty, Le Pen still advocates many of the same historical policies of her party, with particular focus on strong anti-immigration, nationalist and protectionist measures.
She is supportive of economic nationalism, favoring an interventionist role of government, and is opposed to globalization and multiculturalism. Le Pen supports limiting immigration and banning ritual slaughter.
Le Pen has made supportive comments of Vladimir Putin and Russia in the past, advocating closer cooperation before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; she strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, but stated Russia “could become an ally of France again” if it ends
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