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Onwards to round two

It’s hard to believe but just one month ago we had no inkling that a French election was even on the horizon. 

A lot has happened since then, including the first round of voting on Sunday, June 30th, which delivered the predicted but nonetheless shocking win for the far-right Rassemblement National.

Now we are looking ahead to the second round of voting on Sunday which will deliver the final verdict.

There seems little doubt among the (usually very accurate) French pollsters that RN will become the biggest party in the parliament – the only question is whether they will get enough seats to form an absolute majority. 

Listen to the team from The Local discuss the election latest on the Talking France podcast – download here or listen on the link below

Three’s a crowd

It’s all been about triangulaires this week, so at least we have learned a new French word.

In a political context, triangulaire means a three-person contest in July 7th’s second round of voting. In previous elections there have just been a handful of these (in the 2022 parliamentary elections there were eight three-person run-offs, almost all the rest were two-person or duels), which is why they have not loomed large in election discussions before.

In these elections though, the high turnout combined with a lack of candidates from smaller parties (due to the last-minute announcement) produced an unusually high number of triangulaires – more than 300 in fact.

It quickly became apparent that the most effective way to block the rise of the far-right would be for the third-placed centrist or left candidates in a three-way race to withdraw in order to avoid splitting the anti- far right vote.

So a no brainer, right?

Unfortunately not. Although more than 200 candidates ultimately did withdraw in order to faire un barrage (create a roadblock) for the far-right, others did not and the centrist leaders in particular seemed to find it difficult to simply say that everything possible should be done to counter the rise of the far-right.

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, centrist leader François Bayrou and Macron’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire were reportedly among the most reluctant to faire le barrage.

Many of the candidates who did withdraw said: “Nous pouvons nous remettre d’une défaite, mais pas d’un déshonneur” (we can recover from defeat, but not dishonour), illustrating how this election has gone gone way beyond the normal political to-and-fro. 

Paris v France

One thing this election has underscored is the difference between Paris and much of the rest of France – Rassemblement National has extremely weak support in the capital and its suburbs and many of the election maps show Paris as an island of red among the RN blue.

Paris is different from much of the rest of France in lots of ways – and it’s a long-standing point of irritation for many French people that foreigners generalise things that only happen in Paris as being ‘typically French’.

But the political difference is very striking – and in fact much of the RN vote is driven by French voters feeling forgotten, ignored or patronised by decision-makers in Paris.

I was talking this week to a young French woman of Algerian heritage who said that after seeing the election maps she now feels frightened to go outside the Paris region – a comment I found absolutely heartbreaking.

Echoes from history

I’ve heard a lot of English language media use the comparison that a Le Pen government would be the first far-right government in France since World War II.

This is technically correct – the collaborationist Vichy government that was in power during the Nazi occupation was undoubtedly far-right and in some instances went even further than the Germans demanded with their anti-Semitic actions. There were also extremely socially conservative when it came to domestic policy – abortion became a capital crime punished by death by guillotine (before the war it had been illegal but the penalty was imprisonment or a fine).

There is one fairly crucial difference though – the French people did not choose them. The Vichy government wasn’t democratically elected, it was imposed on the people after the fall of France in 1940.

A Le Pen government would be the first time in France’s history that the people elected a far-right government. 

How to follow all the French election news this weekend