The air is getting heavier at the Elysée Palace. For several weeks now, President Emmanuel Macron has been receiving worrying messages from lawmakers in his party, Renaissance. Some voters are telling term in no uncertain terms they will vote for the far-right Rassemblement National party. Fearing the conflictuality of radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, out of exasperation with a president accused of arrogance, or, increasingly, out of support for Marine Le Pen's rhetoric, some French people are ready to take the plunge rightwards. "It's a phenomenon in the making, and we've been warned about it," said an adviser to the president.
On the day of his unexpected victory in 2017, Macron vowed during his speech at the Pyramide du Louvre that he would do everything in his power to ensure that the French "no longer have any reason to vote for the extremes." Unemployment has fallen and billions have been poured into schools, hospitals and economically deprived suburbs. Macron repeatedly tells those close to him that he has beaten the RN twice, in 2017 and in 2022. But now he's shaken.
An ill wind is blowing across Europe. It hoisted Giorgia Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia party, to power in September 2022, and offered a victory to the Dutch populist tribune Geert Wilders, in November, though he is not certain to become prime minsiter. Should Macron resign himself to seeing Le Pen succeed him?
"We have to fight," said Karl Olive, Renaissance MP, who says has observed a "sharpened radicalism" since the outbreak of war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has used the words "atmospheric jihad" to describe the political and security climate in France.
The urban riots last summer, the attacks in Arras, northern France, on October 13, and the Bir-Hakeim bridge in Paris, on December 2, as well as the murder of a teenager in Crépol, southeast France, in November, have stirred up fears that the far right has exploited. The perception of a "link between immigration, crime and Islamism is only growing stronger in public opinion, and the Rassemblement National is gaining ground," said Bernard Sananès, president of the Elabe polling institute.
With six months to go before the European elections, for which the RN list led by Jordan Bardella is topping the polls, the government is panicking. "Just because the Rassemblement National is making itself appear more credible in the Assemblée Nationale doesn't mean it has changed," said government spokesman Olivier Véran in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche on December 3, adding that "if the French can be less afraid of her [Le Pen] than of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, they shouldn't be less afraid of the RN than of LFI [La France Insoumise, Mélenchon's party]."
You have 80% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.