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PARIS — For almost 10 years, the French political establishment has portrayed defeating Marine Le Pen as a duty. Every cycle, they roll out the same rhetoric and warnings about the nationalist right and Le Pen’s National Rally (Rassemblement National), and French voters have held their noses and voted for the guardians of a fading European political system.
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At next year’s presidential election, there may no longer be a single member of France’s political establishment left to face Le Pen. One of the more likely candidates to challenge her is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a 75-year-old radical left-winger who leads France Unbowed (La France Insoumise). Opposed to traditional French culture and anything else that people recognize as culturally or socially European, Mélenchon is the real French radical, who wishes to even rename the French language.
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If Mélenchon runs, French voters are projected to hand Le Pen the presidency by a landslide.
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The National Rally has committed itself to the broad themes of French sovereignty, economic independence, and national security, with an emphasis of controlling immigration and protecting France’s cultural identity. Like many other modern European nationalist parties, its economic program is far more to the left of their counterparts in the Anglosphere, with pro-welfare policies and support for “economic fairness.” Regarding the European Union, the Rally wants more power devolved to the bloc’s member states.
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Those in France who have preached moderation will have nobody to blame but themselves if they watch the presidential election from the sidelines. Even if a French establishment candidate earns enough votes to face Le Pen in a runoff, that candidate will also face an uphill battle to defeat her. The usual expectation that France’s voters will coalesce against Le Pen is no longer a reliable campaign strategy.
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France’s incumbent president, the quintessential liberal technocrat, Emmanuel Macron, has been the strongest bulwark against the National Rally, defeating Le Pen in the runoffs in both 2017 and 2022. Term-limited, Macron cannot try for a trifecta. Even if he could, polling from 2023 showed that a decisive share of French voters regretted choosing Macron in 2022 and would have voted for Le Pen instead. This is not surprising.
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When he assumed the presidency in 2017, Macron pledged a rejuvenation of France that would bridge the old political divides. Suffice it to say, he failed.
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Macron targeted an unemployment rate of just five per cent by 2027. The rate now hovers closer to 10 per cent. Energy costs have spiked across Europe since 2022, and France is no exception. Growth remains stagnant. There is simply little sign of the opportunities Macron promised to restore.