11m ago
19.22 BST
What's behind the French far-right's win?
Angelique
Chrisafis
The French
far-right National Rally is heading for a massive win tonight, led by its
28-year old top candidate, Jordan Bardella.
Bardella,
who was elected to the European parliament five years ago, has led the National
Rally’s European campaign to unprecedented heights, taking 32.4% of the vote
today based on the latest estimates.
He has
taken a deliberately humble tone with voters, part of a strategy to deliver the
final phase of far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s decade-long drive to soften the
far-right party’s image.
Bardella
does not seek to dilute the party’s hardline anti-immigration message, which
has not changed since the 1970s; instead he wants to make it respectable and
fully mainstream ahead of Le Pen’s fourth attempt at the presidency in 2027.
The French
far-right National Rally’s high score in European elections is not new. From
the mid-1980s, it has traditionally done well in European votes and topped the
poll in France in the last two European elections, in 2014 and in 2019.
One major
difference this time is that the rise of other far-right parties across the EU
can give the French equivalent more international clout.
A second is
that Bardella’s lead against French president Emmanuel Macron’s group is big –
expected to be around 17 percentage points - whereas last time it was less than
1%. This shows not just that the far right has grown, but that Macron’s support
has considerably fallen.
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