France’s New Popular Front, a coalition of left parties comprising socialists, communists, ecologists and the hard-left France Unbowed, has surprised poll watchers to emerge as the single largest bloc in the snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron last month, following the European parliamentary elections. The NFP garnered 182 seats, putting it in pole position ahead of Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance and its 168 seats. In third place — much to the surprise of their supporters, who hoped to reprise their winning performance in the European parliamentary election — came Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and allies, although their 143 seats still positioned them far ahead of their 89 seats in 2022. Despite the reasons for celebration that the left and the right might claim in the result, it is Mr. Macron’s prospects for political and economic progress in France along a centrist path that has truly taken a beating from voters this time. Given that no single party has reached the minimum requirement of 289 seats for an absolute majority, France now stares at the gloomy prospect of continuing political uncertainty, the very scenario that Mr. Macron sought to avoid when he called for polls three years ahead of schedule.
At the heart of the present conundrum in France is mainstream concern about the rise of the right across the spectrum of European politics. The National Rally, founded by Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust denier who also espoused extreme views on migration, was once considered an “unviable political option”. Now led by its 28-year-old President, Jordan Bardella, the party is actively seeking to transform its public image, perhaps even if broader voter acceptability requires a softening of its stance on questions of migration, minorities, religion and jobs. The broader regional paradigm, whose echoes reverberated through the election, is that the European political right is similarly finding a measure of acceptability in countries such as the Netherlands, Italy and Finland — and in these and other cases, the business of labelling them “far-right” has become relatively tricky as their policies tend to change frequently and vary significantly across the region. In France, the National Rally may have won over as many or more voters for consistently challenging Mr. Macron on the cost-of-living crisis in the country than for its view on immigration. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently scolded her party’s youth wing for giving fascist salutes. Yet, anti-migration views have won strong support from voters who created unexpected election breakthroughs for Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Nigel Farage of Reform UK in the United Kingdom and the AfD party in Germany. One thing is clear across Europe: the contest for political dominance, between the right, left and centre, could not be more intense.
