France’s National Rally Party to Win Big in the 2024 EU Elections

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the France’s National Rally party, is not on the ballot in this weekend’s 2024 election for the European Parliament, but she is certain to be one of the greatest winners.

Polls predict her National Rally party will win the most votes in France, defeating President Emmanuel Macron’s moderate pro-business party. And across Europe, the anti-immigrant, nationalist ideas that Le Pen has long promoted are gaining traction.

The June 6-9 elections in all 27 EU nations will likely change the composition of the European Parliament and policymaking in the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to the right and extreme right. And that might strengthen Le Pen’s chances of becoming France’s president in 2027, a long-held ambition.

Jordan Bardella, the National Rally’s primary European Parliament candidate, is riding high on promises to curb free movement of migrants across the EU’s open borders, reduce EU pressure on Russia, and roll back EU climate standards.

“We support the idea of reforming the European model around the concept of countries. Bardella criticized Macron’s Europe as a relic of the past during a rally in Paris on Sunday.

Macron’s pro-EU movement is floundering

Meanwhile, Macron’s pro-EU movement is floundering, and its chief candidate, Valerie Hayer, has struggled to gain traction. That concerns Macron as he seeks to spearhead Europe-wide measures to safeguard Ukraine while also strengthening the EU’s own defenses and industries.

More popular Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has joined Hayer at rallies, warning voters that rising authoritarianism threatens hard-fought postwar European unity, as well as democracy itself.

“Europe is mortal, because war knocks on our door, as bombs are being dropped on Ukraine, democracy, and our values, and we know that if Russia wins, it won’t stop there,” Attal said at a protest last week.

He stated that Europe understands “it can’t rely on the U.S. eternally and needs to protect itself … because challenges are multiplying, climate change, big tech, AI, and we can only face them together, the 27 of us.”

While EU voters select members of the European Parliament, many make decisions based on national concerns. In France, many are expected to use their ballots to express dissatisfaction with Macron’s management of the economy, the farm sector, or security in a country about to host the high-risk Paris Olympics.

France’s Socialist Party

On the left, surveys show a stunning return of France’s Socialist Party behind its top candidate, Raphael Glucksmann, who promises more ambitious climate policy and protections for European businesses and workers.

When Macron came to power in 2017, he set aside France’s once-powerful Socialists and mainstream conservative Republicans in favor of a center ground. However, anger among left-wing supporters with Macron’s tougher security and immigration policies, as well as the influential far-left France Unbowed party’s ardent pro-Palestinian attitude, has pushed some to return to the traditional Socialists.

Russia’s president, Gulf leaders, and other energy powers can ”stop supplies of gas or oil, but they can not prevent the wind from blowing in (the French Atlantic town of) Saint-Nazaire and the sun from beaming in Marseille. Last week, Glucksmann emphasized the importance of achieving environmental transformation to reclaim freedom.

France’s protest vote

“We want a more feminist, more socially conscious, fairer, and more environmentalist Europe, and we’re going to fight until the end to see these ideas prevail,” he declared at a Socialist campaign rally. He is bored of the “match” between Macron and the far-right. We have seen it too many times. “It is time to move on.”

Still, Le Pen — the runner-up to Macron in the last two presidential elections — is anticipated to benefit the most from France’s protest vote, much more than her party did in the most recent EU elections in 2019.

In the working-class northern French town of Henin-Beaumont, 19-year-old first-time voter Theo Boulogne pushed Le Pen to run for president again in 2027, while 76-year-old retiree Gerard Criquelette commended her and Bardella, adding, “They both listen to the people.”

Le Pen, whose father and party founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was repeatedly convicted of racism and anti-Semitism, no longer advocates for drastic steps such as leaving the EU and the eurozone. Instead, she intends to undercut the EU’s strength from within.

Le Pen stated that national parties in Europe are forming alliances to address the difficulties of the 21st century, rather than destroying the EU. “Across France and Europe, we are winning the struggle.

Source: AP