World News: European Elections Become a French Duel

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Category: Haute This Issue
Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2024 09:05
Written by Olivier Longhi

The European elections are creating a crowded field of contenders as four political fronts, French President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance Party, the National Rally and to a lesser degree the Socialist Party and the Republicans, seek political office.

Let's review the contributing factors that allowed the two political parties to emerge. If some doubted it, it is now becoming obvious, almost a democratic drama, but it appears that the next European elections, in France at least, will turn into a dual Renaissance, the presidential party, against Rassemblement National, the extreme right party, officially qualified as such by the Council of State.

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Beyond the confrontation, which seems inevitable, unless we see a reversal of the situation materialize in the coming days that would see the right and the left come back to life (by which I mean the Socialist Party and Les Républicains), it is not inappropriate to look at the reasons that pushed the right and the left to be siphoned off, the first by the Rassemblement National, the second by La France Insoumise and the presidential party. As far as Les Républicains is concerned, it is possible to identify at least two reasons.

Heir to Gaullism

The first is linked to the declared desire of the far-right party to precisely leave and get rid of this name by presenting itself as a hard-right party, partisan of order and rigor, sometimes even going to present itself as the heir of a forgotten Gaullism where France wanted to shine by its greatness and its aura.

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This rather crude seduction operation nevertheless worked quite well with a right-wing electorate disappointed by an original party considered too close to Macronism, itself more adept at a centre-right policy than really liberal and right-wing. The second, more historical reason, which was recalled in 1997 by Lionel Jospin, then First Secretary of the Socialist Party and not yet Prime Minister, is the natural ideological porosity existing between the Republican right and the far right.

For if the republican right has always despised the xenophobic theses put forward by the National Front of the time and the National Rally of today, there is nevertheless a reactionary background which, in times of societal uncertainty, grows and attracts voters in need of authority.

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Social Democracy

As for the left, which has long been omnipotent and after having emptied the Communist Party of its militants and its most progressive ideas (because there were some), the Socialist Party was beaten by LFI and Emmanuel Macron in 2017, presenting itself as the natural son of social democracy, whose turn the classical left has never been able to negotiate, including when Michel Rocard, Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, laid the foundations, which were then disowned by his peers and the party as a whole.

LFI, more brutally but effectively, has thus imposed itself as a form of popular new left when the PS has liquefied, even disintegrated, within Macron, which has not even thanked it. Ultimately, the bipolarization of French political life, now reduced to a duel of right-wing parties, also highlights the democratic crisis and poverty that is strangling the country while revealing the ideological weakness of historical political formations as well as their metabolic mediocrity.

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.

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