With three and a half months to go before the European elections, Emmanuel Macron has positioned himself far right's number one opponent. In an interview to the Communist newspaper L'Humanité on Monday February 19 – the first granted by a sitting president over the publication's 120-year history – he urged readers "not to leave the fight against illegal immigration to the far right." "The nation is a matter of rights and duties," he said. "If it's open to all comers, if illegal immigrants can have access to rights without contributing to them, what does that accomplish? Why do you think the working class is turning to the RN [Rassemblement National, far-right]? This is a republican struggle."

In his view, "the feeling of loss of control fuels the RN. Many of its voters see Europe as too open, too complicated. Thus, the magic formula would be a return to nationalism."

The president, who had been criticized by the left for his January 26, 2024 immigration law – which the RN voted for – defensively retorted that "very left-wing policies" were pursued in the 1980s, which "led to the entry, into the Assemblée National, of the Front National [now renamed the Rassemblement National], [which was] resolutely anti-Semitic and negationist, which the RN is no longer openly. All that should lead to humility".

Minimizing his responsibility for the RN's rise in recent years, Macron said that "it's society that has normalized and trivialized the far right. It has been invited on every television show for over ten years."

Although he invited RN leader Marine Le Pen to attend Wednesday's commemoration ceremony of communist resistance fighters Missak and Mélinée Manouchian at the Panthéon, he explained that it was his "duty to invite all representatives elected by the French people." According to him, it was not for him to "pick and choose among them," "by an arbitrary gesture."

The far-right party would do well, however, to refrain from attending, according to Macron. "As in the case for the tribute to Robert Badinter, from which the RN elected representatives were absent, in the spirit of decency, the historical connection should lead them to make a choice [...], given the nature of Manouchian's struggle," said the president, referring to the party having been founded by figures associated with collaborating with the Nazi occupation of France.

"Jews, Hungarians, Poles, Armenians, Communists, they gave their lives for our country," he said, although no Communist Resistance figure – let alone any foreign Resistance fighter – had been granted this honor until now. "It's a way of bringing in all forms of the interior Resistance, including some that have been forgotten for too long."

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