Protecting jobs for French citizens has been a core promise of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) for over 40 years. In 1978, former RN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen declared that "One million unemployed is one million immigrants too many! France and the French first!" His daughter, Marine, has since taken over the party and renamed the far-right party but has maintained its stance on "national preference" when it comes to employment. In 2021, as a presidential candidate, she defended this stance, stating: "The Frenchman is at home. Employers must be allowed to give priority access to employment to a Frenchman."

Discrimination in hiring has always been a key Rassemblement National promise, but it has never been so openly advocated for by the RN as this month. In its policy platform for businesses, presented on Saturday, September 14, the RN does more than just reiterate a principle: "Apply national priority, for equal skills, to all positions to be filled in France." The document goes on to provide practical details for employers: "It will be necessary to include nationality among the criteria for choosing a candidate, bearing in mind that the nationality rule already applies in a large proportion of the state civil service." The RN also points out in the brochure that the hiring of foreigners would "naturally" still be allowed in cases where "foreigners [have] skills that are rare and necessary for the prosperity of the French economy."

In 2017, Le Pen proposed a plan to encourage French recruitment by introducing an "additional tax on all new foreign employee contracts." This idea resurfaced in a bill submitted last January by MP Alexandre Sabatou, co-signed by almost all RN MPs. The bill sought to raise employer contributions for those hiring non-EU foreign workers.

The far-right party has shifted from merely discouraging the hiring of non-EU nationals by raising costs to enforcing a nationality requirement for every private-sector job. "For equal skills, the employer will have to recruit the French rather than the foreigner," summed up MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, the author of the economic program. Tanguy confirmed that "national priority" will be mandatory. French citizens who believe they have been discriminated against in the hiring process would benefit from a form of "enforceable right." "The administration will not investigate every recruitment," explained the MP. "But a person could take legal action for discrimination if he or she felt that a foreigner had unfairly been recruited in his or her place. The employer will have to prove that no French person applied."

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