We asked two correspondents based in France why the high-stakes national election matters. Here’s what they said.
On 30 June, millions of French citizens will go to the polls in the first round of snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron. But why should a young person anywhere in the world care about what’s happening in France? What impact could the vote have on their lives?
Turns out, a lot.
France is a founding member of the European Union, the second largest economy in the EU, the only EU member state with nuclear weapons and a member of the UN Security Council. It is the United States’ oldest ally and a strong supporter of Ukraine. A far-right party has not governed the nation since the Nazi occupation 80 years ago — but could soon see one win a parliamentary majority.
Like its counterparts across Europe and the United States, the far-right party in question — the Rassemblement National — opposes immigration and has sympathies for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The second round of elections will take place on 7 July, less than three weeks before the world’s attention turns to France for the Summer Olympics. To help our readers understand the background and significance of these elections, we asked two of our correspondents who live in France — Nelson Graves and Alistair Lyon — to give us their perspective.
“Vote will embolden far-right forces”
Nelson Graves, Founder of News Decoder
One liberal democracy after another in the West has seen far-right, nationalist political parties win over voters who in decades past shunned extremist positions. For decades after World War Two, memories of the fascist powers that laid waste to Europe and Asia, and unpalatable positions adopted by far-right leaders, kept populist parties outside the mainstream from positions of power.
With the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, a bulwark against right-wing extremism began to crumble.
In recent years, far-right parties in nations that had thrown off the yoke of Communist rule or in Western European democracies that founded the European Union have either won power — think Hungary and Italy — or emerged as political kingmakers.
The National Rally (Rassemblement National) in France has its roots in right-wing populism and neo-fascism, but its contemporary incarnation has toned down its xenophobic rhetoric. It won a significant presence in France’s lower house of parliament in 2022 and has sought, with some success, to establish itself as a palatable alternative to the center-right and center-left parties that have governed France since the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
The rise of the far-right in France parallels gains across much of Europe, reflected this month in the results of the elections to the European Parliament. Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections in 2016 and Britain’s vote the same year to leave the European Union were testimony to the popularity of right-wing nationalism.
It’s not clear who will win France’s parliamentary elections, but the National Rally is sure to consolidate its standing and might end up being able to stake a claim to govern the country.
At the same time, President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to call snap elections has brought disparate parties on the left under a common electoral umbrella. Macron, who won power in 2017 with a program he hoped would bridge the center-right and center-left, has seen support for his party and his center-right allies crumble, and unless he resigns, he might be forced for the remaining three years of his mandate to work with a party or coalition of parties that oppose his neo-liberal, reformist policies.
While the results of the election are uncertain, it seems clear that the vote will embolden far-right forces in France and beyond; weaken, at least temporarily, France’s standing in the European Union; and complicate efforts to craft common European policies in the areas of security, defense, immigration, economics, finance and trade.
“Watching the results through my fingers”
Alistair Lyon, Correspondent
As a recently qualified voter — I acquired my French passport in 2022 — the snap parliamentary election called by President Macron offers me only uneasy choices and fills me with trepidation.
I had, perhaps naively, welcomed Macron’s arrival at the Elysée Palace in 2017, as a breath of fresh air. Here was a young, energetic, centrist president who had swept aside the once-powerful parties on the right and left with promises of reform and moderation.
I watched with mounting dismay as he antagonised public opinion with rash policies and ill-chosen words, monopolised decision-making and moved steadily to the right in a way that I felt only helped legitimise the once-shunned far-right Rassemblement National (RN).
I will never vote for the RN and have no wish to back Macron’s party after his many broken promises and his habit of favouring big business, investment and growth with scant concern for the environment or for less privileged sectors of the population.
That leaves the Front Populaire, a hastily cobbled together leftist alliance. This yokes the radical La France Insoumise led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon — whose confrontational approach and some of whose views I find distasteful — with other factions ranging from social democrats to communists.
Neighbours in our small village in southwest France also find themselves conflicted. One, a retired engineer, says he has finally lost faith with the rightwing Les Républicains and is ready to give the RN a shot at power because “we haven’t tried them before”.
Another, a handyman, says he has always voted for the Parti Socialiste (PS), but that he can’t stomach Mélenchon, so would rather abstain than back the Front Populaire, which includes the PS. He despises Macron as “a liar who takes us for idiots”.
As for me, once in the voting booth I will opt for whatever choice seems likeliest to save France from sliding into the grip of the RN’s brand of authoritarian, populist and xenophobic nationalism. And then watch the results through my fingers.
Three questions to consider:
- What is the significance of the upcoming French elections?
- Why are the results of this election relevant beyond France?
- Why do you think far-right political parties have been successful in recent elections in Europe and around the world?
Nelson Graves is the founder of News Decoder. A dual American-French citizen, he has worked as a foreign correspondent and educator on three continents. Recently he published a memoir entitled “Willful Wanderer”. He lives in France.
Alistair Lyon is former Middle East diplomatic correspondent for Reuters. During three decades at the news agency, he covered conflicts as well as political and economic news in the Middle East and beyond. He began in Lebanon and headed bureaus in Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan/Afghanistan and Egypt/Sudan. He spent five years in London as Middle East diplomatic correspondent and five in Beirut as special correspondent, Middle East.