海角大神

Victor Mallet, a veteran British foreign correspondent and commentator for the Financial Times, explores how the far right has moved from the fringes to the mainstream in France. In a phone interview, he discussed his new book, 鈥淔ar-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe,鈥� and the rise of the National Rally party. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The National Rally is often described as a party of extreme viewpoints, and one that exists outside of the mainstream. After all your research, visiting French towns that have been changed by the far right and speaking with voters, how has your perspective changed?

I鈥檝e been following the far right on and off for 30 years, so it wasn鈥檛 a surprise to find how powerful the party was and how popular it was with voters. A lot of people in Britain are very reluctant to describe their own far-right politicians as extremists, but when they look at the continent they think, 鈥淥h yeah, those neo-Nazis in Germany鈥� or 鈥淭hose fascists in France.鈥� They have this perception of people with tattoos who are kind of racist thugs.

But actually, [the far right] is a mainstream party in the sense that 30% or 40% of French people are expressing support for this party, and the people who support them are not the clich茅. They could be middle-class people, accountants, public servants, bakers, or butchers. People I interviewed often said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not so keen on [the far right鈥檚] policies toward immigration or race but I really support them because I鈥檓 fed up with the [current] government.鈥�

Eduardo Martins

Victor Mallet is a journalist and the senior editor for world news at the Financial Times

Rightly or wrongly, they perceive that this will be a radical shift that will change the government, which they feel has been run by the same kind of people for the last 50 years.

You wrote that Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, said that the party鈥檚 project is 鈥渢o change everything without destroying anything.鈥� Is that possible?

So, first, you have the issue of whether or not they will do what they say they鈥檒l do [if they win the presidency]. The signs are that on immigration they will be very tough and quite Trumpian in the way they run the system. They鈥檙e going to try and change the constitution; they鈥檙e going to try and reduce the number of immigrants to a trickle; they鈥檙e going to deprive noncitizens of their rights [like social security benefits], which essentially requires a constitutional change. 鈥淟iberty, equality, fraternity,鈥� which is a universal idea since the French Revolution, will now be applied purely to French citizens. These are radical changes.

Could institutions in France be disrupted as quickly as in the U.S.?

It is possible, but it will mean the party having control not only of the 脡lys茅e Palace but also of the National Assembly. In other words, winning two elections. The National Assembly election will be called almost inevitably by whoever is president, whether it鈥檚 the far right or somebody else. If [the far right] then got control of the National Assembly as well, which has traditionally happened in France, that gives them a lot of power.

In the case of Germany, for example, if the AfD [Alternative for Germany party] was in government 鈥� even if it was the biggest party 鈥� it would almost certainly be in a coalition. [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni is in a coalition. So, to some extent, those parties are constrained by their coalition.

There is also the matter of whether or not the constitutional court would push back against some of the constitutional changes. I鈥檝e had people tell me, 鈥淵es, that would be a point of resistance.鈥� But the far right wants to change the justice system and the media, which they feel are biased toward the left.

Are the issues that have traditionally been at the forefront of far-right politics still resonating? Is their stance on immigration still relevant? What about the environment?

Immigration isn鈥檛 always top-of-the-agenda for French voters. For the National Rally, because immigration has always been their calling card 鈥� as it was for [President Donald] Trump and Brexiters 鈥� they can count on those voters who are angry and concerned about immigration. But what they need to win in the French two-round system is to attract another 15% or 20% of the voters who are not necessarily obsessed by immigration, but are concerned about other things.

On the environment issue, it鈥檚 really an energy price issue for the National Rally. They鈥檙e not denying climate change, but they鈥檙e saying that the [green energy] transition is too painful for French consumers, that we shouldn鈥檛 punish them with green fuel taxes or try to make too much effort toward carbon neutrality.

When I asked Bardella about climate change, he said that we shouldn鈥檛 deny the reality of climate change because that would be making the same mistake that the left made for decades in denying that immigration was an issue.

You write about how Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party, which Marine Le Pen renamed the National Rally, once said that 鈥淎 nice FN is of no use to anyone.鈥� Will the change in leadership help or hinder the party in the upcoming elections?

That鈥檚 the big tension: between Marine Le Pen, who is her father鈥檚 daughter, and Bardella. Bardella is more open to the rest of the right coming over. The center right is already splitting and some of them are coming over to the far right. And that鈥檚 not just politicians, that鈥檚 also the voters.

But this issue of whether the detoxification policy by Marine Le Pen is watering down the party too much, Jean-Marie Le Pen very much believed that Marine Le Pen was making a mistake. He said, 鈥淎ctually, people like the devil.鈥� He warned Marine Le Pen that if she was too normal, then the party would lose its cachet. You can see that Marine Le Pen has brought the party very slightly closer to the center, very slightly further away from the far right.

For example, the [far-right] AfD in Germany is considered too toxic for the French and they don鈥檛 want to associate with people who are sometimes openly neo-Nazi. The [French far right] are not linked with them in the European Parliament because they don鈥檛 like their policies and neither do French voters.

So, in that sense, this [watering down] is not damaging the party. And if you look at the polls and you look at voting records, so far, it hasn鈥檛 done them any harm. While [Marine Le Pen] is very slightly moving away from the extreme toward the center, the rest of French society and the rest of Europe is actually moving more toward the right.