On Sunday, France goes to the polls in local elections that few French care about and even fewer understand. Yet the political implications for France and Europe, could be huge.
The Front National (FN), once a dubious protest party of xenophobes, anti-Semites and diehard fascists, will — if you believe the polls — finish ahead of the ruling Socialists and centre-Right opposition. Marine Le Pen will be able to claim that she leads the “first party of France”. Such talk was previously dismissed as the puffed-up rhetoric one has come to expect from a Le Pen, pere (father) or fille (daughter). Now the claim rings less hollow; reality and rhetoric have never felt so close.
In a Europe where populism is on the rise, France is depressed and starting to wonder whether it will ever recover from economic stagnation, mass unemployment and decline. Francois Hollande’s chirpy claims of an impending upswing are almost a running gag. But with her brash manner and simplistic solutions of nationalist protectionism, Le Pen has been masterful in channelling French fears of being swallowed by a hostile world.
Europe, immigrants and scroungers remain the party’s usual scapegoats, but the tone has softened and other villains added — including finance and free marketeers. If the FN comes first tomorrow with a predicted 30 per cent, its “territorial net” will be cast wide across France, forming an unprecedented Front Local.
To achieve its aim, the party is fielding 7,648 candidates — more than any other party. These are seen as vital foot soldiers deployed in advance of Le Pen’s bid for the presidency in 2017. Crucially, pole position will also bolster Le Pen’s claim to being de facto leader of the mainstream Right against Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-Right UMP.
“It is rather like Britain,” says Jean-Yves Camus, a Front National expert, “where the Conservatives and Ukip are struggling be the top party in the Right-wing bloc. In France the FN no longer appears as markedly Far-Right as it used to be.”
Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Indeed, is there anything “mainstream” about the Front National — a nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-Europe party, which wants to scrap the euro, restore the death penalty and favour French people over immigrants when giving out benefits? That question has been at the heart of a row started by the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, who said: “I fear my country will shatter against the Front National.” With a few words, he ensured the FN remained the focus of these elections without Le Pen having to lift a finger.
Be very afraid, Valls warned, because Le Pen could well become president, turning France into a pariah state that will bring down the Eurozone. And despite its new look, the feeling is that the devil still lurks at the heart of the “detoxified” party. Jean-Marie Le Pen — who described the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history” — is still the party’s honorary president; he is also a Euro MP and intends to run in regional elections in December. He’s almost a mascot.
Several candidates have also recently been exposed as racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic. They will be expelled, says Marine, explaining that all parties have “errors of casting”. Her party, she says is no more “extreme” than Ukip.
Le Pen is rather fond of drawing comparisons with Ukip — Nigel Farage isn’t so keen — and sees a future where the parties will do business with each other “if only because we will both tomorrow be in power in our respective countries”.
Indeed, much of what she stands for — monetary, territorial, legislative and economic sovereignty — is what Farage is after too. Like Farage, Le Pen is a canny operator. Her new statist protectionist programme described by one former minster as “Far-Left with the Marseillaise thrown in” is economically unviable, but it is politically astute: it makes the Left sound like a bunch of pro-globalisation, free marketeers, which is hardly a vote winner among France’s working classes.
In a country deeply disillusioned with its political class, the party’s best hopes are in “forgotten France” like l’Aisne in Picardy — a once thriving industrial area now enduring high unemployment and a sense of abandonment. Le Pen’s little by little approach to power is bearing fruit, even though she won’t do so well in the second round of voting.
And, as things stand, Valls’ predictions for 2017 may not be so wide of the mark. As Camus says, “It is improbable, but it is no longer in the realms of science fiction.” If France and her political class don’t come to their senses soon, the future will be more like a horror story.
