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POLITICS

French far-right set to pick Bardella, 27, as Le Pen successor

France's far-right National Rally party will Saturday choose a successor to its longtime leader Marine Le Pen, with 27-year-old Jordan Bardella the overwhelming favourite to oversee the task of building on strong parliament gains.

French far-right set to pick Bardella, 27, as Le Pen successor
French MP leader and President of the Rassemblement National (RN) parliamentary group Marine Le Pen and French European deputy and candidate to RN's presidency Jordan Bardella (L). Photo: Alain JOCARD/AFP

Le Pen, who failed to unseat Emmanuel Macron in last spring’s presidential vote, has nonetheless turned her party into a sizable force since taking over from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 11 years ago.

Efforts to shed its legacy of virulent anti-Semitic and extremist views helped see RN candidates win 89 seats in the National Assembly after Macron’s re-election, depriving his centrist party of an absolute majority.

By stepping down as party chief, Le Pen will focus on leading the RN group in parliament, where she will have a powerful platform for a potential fourth run at the presidency in 2027. Party sources told AFP the only uncertainty is the “size of the victory” of Bardella over his rival Louis Aliot, a party veteran and former partner of Le Pen.

Brought up by his mother who was born in Italy, Bardella promotes a slick image, rarely seen out of a suit and impressed this year with sharp performances in election debates. But shadows from the past remain for the party.

This week Le Pen and Bardella, already serving as interim chief, had to defend one of their members of parliament who was suspended over claims of a racist outburst against a colleague.

Gregoire de Fournas yelled “back to Africa” to a black lawmaker who was challenging the government’s response to migrants rescued at sea in the Mediterranean.

READ ALSO: French far-right MP suspended over ‘back to Africa’ outburst in parliament

He later said he was referring to the boat, not his fellow lawmaker, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday that Bardella had shown his complicity in “everyday racism”.

Extremist nostalgia? 

There are also questions over what value the RN presidency has for Bardella, given Le Pen formally leads its cohort in parliament and is widely Expected to be its presidential candidate in 2027.  But the party position can also be a stepping stone for when “MLP” finally bows out from the political scene.

Bardella has also been criticised in the last weeks by Aliot, who as mayor of Perpignan is the only RN politician to run a city larger than 100,000 people. Aliot has accused him of encouraging white supremacist groups that should be unacceptable for a party trying to prove it can unite and govern the country.

Bardella also gave credence in August 2021 to the so-called “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory of a surreptitious “Islamisation” of Europe orchestrated by its elites — something Le Pen has shied away from.

In an open letter last month, Aliot slammed “extremist nostalgia” and “the excesses of the National Front of a long-gone era,” a reference to the party’s original name.

Aliot later said he was targeting the supporters of Eric Zemmour, the far-right pundit who siphoned off many RN voters with his more extremist positions in this spring’s presidential contest.

Bardella accused him of “bitterness and bad faith”, insisting his goal is to win over more supporters from traditional parties on the right and left.

Further scrambling the French political establishment, the RN has voted alongside the far-left France Unbowed party in favour of no-confidence motions brought against the government in fierce budget debates.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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