French far right poised for record surge in EU
election, poll shows
New survey data from five European countries carries
worrying signal for centrist parties ahead of European Parliament vote.
FEBRUARY
12, 2024 4:00 AM CET
BY NICOLAS
CAMUT
BRUSSELS —
France’s far right is forecast to record its highest-ever result in the
upcoming European Parliament election, new poll data shows.
The
far-right National Rally, led by outgoing member of the European Parliament
(MEP) Jordan Bardella, could win 33 percent of the vote, while the far-right
Reconquête party would stand at 6 percent, according to a poll from consultancy
firm Portland Communications shared with POLITICO.
This would
put the National Rally miles ahead of the centrist Ensemble! coalition, which
includes French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and is expected
to receive a meagre 14 percent of the vote.
The poll
was conducted online in late January — as France was in the midst of
large-scale farmers’ protests — among 1,034 people forming a “nationally and
politically representative sample.”
It was also
carried out in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, where similar
results were found among samples of similar sizes.
Far-right
parties are expected to make sizeable gains everywhere but in Poland, where
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition is forecast to receive 35
percent of the vote.
In Germany,
the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is projected to win 17 percent of
the vote, up from 11 percent in the 2019 EU election.
“The EU is
heading into these elections with citizens in a deeply pessimistic mood,”
Portland Communications CEO Victoria Dean said, adding that voters were
“concerned about issues which are difficult to fix.”
In France,
Germany, Italy and Poland, the cost-of-living crisis topped voters’ agenda,
while the housing crisis was the top concern for Dutch respondents.
Immigration
came in a close second in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In Italy and
Poland, health care was the second-most cited issue.
In every
country except Poland, most people reported being dissatisfied with the
direction taken by their country.
France and
Germany — which have center-right and center-left governments — had the highest
proportion of unhappy respondents, with respectively 68 percent and 66 percent
saying their country was “on the wrong path.”
In all five
countries, most people said they would base their vote on domestic rather than
EU-wide issues — a common outcome in EU elections campaigns, which tend to
focus on national concerns.
Germany had
the highest share of people saying their vote would be mainly motivated by EU
issues — a mere 15 percent of respondents.
Nick Vinocur contributed reporting.
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