What is going on in French politics? - A brief overview

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of goings on within the French political landscape. While I am in no means an expert, I am going to attempt to breakdown what exactly has happened, who the National Rally party are and what it could mean for France.

Who are the National Rally?

Known as the National Front from 1972-2018, National Rally is a French populist and nationalist party headed by Jean-Marine Le Pen. In recent years they have seen a widespread boost in popularity spurred on by the work of Marine Le Pen to soften the party's image after taking over from her father.

There are 7 main characteristics that can be seen as the core values of the party: Nationalism, anti-immigration, self-determination, anti-globalization, populism, direct democracy and charismatic leadership. Their stance on immigration of course being a large part of the party’s image, personified by the two most influential figures within the party Jean-Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. For example Le Pen has talked in recent years of her aim to challenge “radical Islamism” through policies such as banning headscarves in public places. During this shift in order to boost support, the party has moved to a basis of economic nationalism in recent years (economics based around more state interventionism and protectionism), advocating policies such as tax breaks for the under 30’s, as well as challenging the recent attempt to raise the retirement age.

A key figure to rise within the national rally in recent years is Jordan Bardella, he currently looks as the most likely candidate to head the French parliament, being the acting president of the party since 2022. Bardella is an interesting figure within French politics, being only 28, he rose through the ranks after joining the party at 16 and is seen by many as Le Pen’s puppet, following her lead and party direction. His impoverished youth makes him appealing (although his father is wealthy) and he also holds a great ability to appeal to the youth vote, taking advantage of social media to garner support with 1.6m followers on Tik Tok and over 700,000 on Instagram as well as his perceived good looks also boosting his popularity. Bardella has built a large portion of his platform on how he aims to tackle both immigration and crime, although he has been blurry on specifics.

The National Rally therefore place themselves a party of broad appeal for the French public, with recent opinion polls from newspaper Ifob predicting them a 35% vote share heading into the next election, crushing Macron’s supporters who currently languish third in the polls.

What does this mean for French politics going forward?

It is likely that we will see a shift from much more centrist policy into more right wing ones under National Rally as they currently stand as the most likely party to win government. However there will be some level of contention between Macron and the new government due to his plans to not step down.

Bardella has outlined his plans, commenting that his party is “ready to govern”, before going on to state that "Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country" and vowing to increase purchasing powers, “restore order” and make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes. It therefore seems change is on the horizon for French politics, with the country seeming to follow a trend that can be seen to be sweeping Europe, that being the rise of more focus on right wing parties fueled by anti immigrant and pro nationalist sentiments, a trend followed by countries such as Poland, Italy, the UK and Greece.

Footer

I would just like to comment that I am no expert on French politics, so please leave a comment to let me know if I have made any mistakes within this article. I would also like to highlight this work which helped provide me with a large portion of my info on the National Rally party. (https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/3073733/no.ntnu%3ainspera%3a145530834%3a66513080.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y )