How the far-right has shifted France鈥檚 political center of gravity
| Paris
As next year鈥檚 presidential elections in France approach, the two front-runners are trying on each other鈥檚 clothes.聽
Marine Le Pen, traditionally a candidate of the extreme right, is seeking more moderate voters by steering her party, the National Rally, toward the middle ground of French politics. More surprisingly, perhaps, President Emmanuel Macron is veering sharply rightward, shocking many of his supporters and raising questions about the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.聽
鈥淲e are seeing [National Rally] ideas have become normalized and a structural part of mainstream debate,鈥� says Gilles Ivaldi, who teaches at Sciences Po and the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. 鈥淭hat is a reality.鈥澛�
Why We Wrote This
The French president and his far-right competitor for the 2022 elections are adopting parts of each other鈥檚 platforms, throwing into question just what topics are acceptable in the mainstream.
Two incidents in recent weeks have crystallized the new tone of Mr. Macron鈥檚 government, which he has always characterized as neither right- nor left-wing.聽聽
In a broadcast debate with Ms. Le Pen, Interior Minister G茅rald Darmanin accused her of being 鈥渟oft鈥� on radical Islam, vaunting the muscular legislation on Islamist 鈥渟eparatism鈥� that he presented to Parliament on Feb. 1.聽
A few days later, another minister called for an investigation into 鈥淚slamo-leftism鈥� in French universities, using a phrase commonly heard only in extreme right-wing circles, which she said was 鈥減oisoning society.鈥澛�
鈥淭he government is courting public opinion in some pretty nauseating places,鈥� said the president of the Sorbonne University, Jean Chambaz. 鈥淭hey should be managing the [COVID-19] crisis instead of preparing for the elections.鈥�
Borrowing from the far-right
Almost since Ms. Le Pen鈥檚 father, the Holocaust-denying Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Front (since renamed the National Rally), mainstream politicians in France have been borrowing the far-right鈥檚 rhetoric on its key issues, immigration and law and order.聽
In 1990 President Fran莽ois Mitterrand, a聽Socialist, said France had gone beyond 鈥渢he threshold of tolerance鈥� on immigration. A year later his center-right rival, former President Val茅ry Giscard d鈥橢staing, warned of a foreign 鈥渋nvasion.鈥澛�
Another center-right former president, Nicolas Sarkozy (to whom Mr. Macron is known to turn regularly for advice), wanted to ban Muslim women from wearing their veils in public, and a Socialist interior minister, Manuel Valls, once called for the expulsion of all Roma from France.聽
World events have also played their part in the normalization of attitudes that were once beyond the pale, suggests Thomas Gu茅nol茅, a political analyst.聽
鈥淎fter World War II, it was impossible to imagine a far-right party after France鈥檚 participation in the Holocaust. No one tolerated extremism,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut the nationalist movement was always present, and the Sept. 11 attacks created a new anti-Muslim paranoia. It became acceptable to invite extreme voices onto French TV and in politics. The general atmosphere completely changed.鈥澛犅犅犅�
Though Mr. Macron campaigned as a fresh, young reformist progressive for the 2017 presidential elections, he has lost much of his bloom, worn down by the protests of the Yellow Vest social movement in 2018-19 and then by his awkward handling of the pandemic.
His government has, in recent months, adopted harsher rhetoric on hot-button issues such as Islamism, secularism, and law and order, positioning itself as the guardian of traditional French values.聽
The so-called global security law, still before Parliament, offers police much greater powers of mass surveillance than they currently enjoy, including the use of facial-recognition software, and would also outlaw the 鈥減rovocative identification鈥� of police officers in photos or video, even those exceeding their authority, so as to protect their 鈥減hysical and psychic integrity.鈥澛�
Another draft law, designed to 鈥渟trengthen republican principles鈥� according to its title, is aimed at 鈥淚slamist separatists,鈥� banning home schooling, giving the state more control over religious organizations鈥� funding, and allowing the authorities to close or remove the leadership of mosques. Critics complain that the law stigmatizes France鈥檚 5 million-strong Muslim community.聽
Some observers suggest that Mr. Macron is concentrating on such issues as a way to distract attention from his political difficulties. But such tactics have broader implications, says Emiliano Grossman, a political analyst. 鈥淥nce you make far-right arguments acceptable, they stay acceptable,鈥� he says. 鈥淪o even if it is a short-term [electoral] strategy, it has long-term effects.鈥�
The 鈥渕ajority of French people share our ideas鈥�
As Mr. Macron seeks votes across the aisle, Ms. Le Pen has continued her push to give her party a more moderate image by rebranding it under a new name and logo, hiring a younger and more diverse staff, and publicly shunning her father in a bid to shake off the neo-fascist image the party had projected.聽
She has also abandoned some key planks of the former National Front鈥檚 platform, recognizing that they were widely unpopular. She no longer advocates leaving the European Union, nor its common currency, the euro; she has moderated her opposition to the free flow of European citizens around the Continent. Ms. Le Pen has even presented herself as an environmentalist, in what observers see as an effort to appeal to Green party voters disillusioned with the president.聽
Her efforts have borne fruit, up to a point. In a March poll for the Journal du Dimanche weekly, 43%聽of聽respondents said they agreed with her political program, but only聽28%聽said they shared the party鈥檚 values.
She has been more successful, it seems, in helping to move the center of gravity of French politics closer to her outlook. Even Mr. Macron, elected as a wholehearted supporter of globalization, now proposes the sort of 鈥渞egulation of globalization and economic patriotism鈥� that Ms. Le Pen claimed as the heart of her ideology recently at a meeting with the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris.聽
鈥淭he immense majority of French people share our ideas, which are perfectly reasonable,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o our political opponents are having trouble today not stepping into our territory.鈥�
Mr. Macron鈥檚 election in 2017, at the head of La R茅publique En Marche, a brand-new political organization that won votes from traditional supporters of both left-wing and right-wing parties, shattered France鈥檚 two-party system. That has left large numbers of voters without any party affiliation 鈥� a situation that both Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen hope to exploit.
It is not clear, however, that either of them will be able to do so by next April when the presidential election is due. Too many people who voted for Mr. Macron in the last presidential elections are too disappointed in his performance to vote for him again; too many of the moderates whom Ms. Le Pen would like to seduce are not persuaded that her new image is more than skin-deep.聽
That could lead to widespread abstention, some observers predict. 鈥淚鈥檓 seeing it in the latest opinion polls and hearing it all around me,鈥� says Mr. Gu茅nol茅, the political scientist. 鈥淢ore people are saying that if it comes down to Macron and Le Pen in the second round [of the presidential election], they鈥檒l just stay home.鈥�
