Madame la Présidente? How Marine Le Pen could hand France its populist moment

It looks like everything is falling into place for Marine Le Pen, France’s long-time populist leader. In September, she overtook embattled incumbent President Emmanuel Macron in the opinion polls, just as the country’s second wave of coronavirus cases began to crest. Not only has she maintained the lead, but she’s now been acquitted of hate speech charges, clearing another hurdle on her path to next April’s elections.

In fact, the court case against Le Pen was possibly the best boost her campaign could have had. Prosecutors had hauled her before a judge for posting graphic pictures online of ISIS atrocities, in what she claimed was a response to a journalist comparing her party, the National Rally, to the Islamist group. She and her legal team had branded the trial politically motivated and hailed the decision to throw out the charges as a victory for free expression. Her supporters will likely see it as yet more evidence that the state is seeking to shut down discussion in the name of religious harmony, in a country that has seen a spate of ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks in recent years.

For the far-right politician, her third attempt at winning the keys to the Elysée Palace comes as debate around her favourite issue reaches fever pitch. Le Pen, who once equated Muslims praying in the street to Nazi occupying forces in WWII, has sought to harness growing concerns over the social makeup of the country. Now, those concerns have come to the fore even for liberal politicians like Macron in the wake of the murder of Parisian schoolteacher Samuel Paty. The 47-year old was beheaded by a teenage Chechen immigrant after reportedly showing his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Since then, Macron has sparked outrage and triggered boycotts of French products in a number of Muslim countries for his defence of Paty’s lesson, using a speech to brand Islam a religion “in crisis all over the world.” Facing calls for action, he has championed a “charter of Republican values” that asks Imams to promote secularism and reject conservative Islamic values. While his efforts to talk tough have enraged many of the religion’s followers at home and abroad, they have simultaneously failed to shore up his credentials with the sizeable part of the French public that Le Pen’s rhetoric appeals to.

Just two weeks ago, around 1,000 servicemen and women, including 20 or so retired generals, signed an open letter warning that “fanatic partisans” pose a threat to the very fabric of the country. According to them, “the hour is grave, France is in peril,” and a “deadly civil war” could be on the cards. It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the armed forces’ foray into civilian politics has been an almost unprecedented shock for the political class of Paris, leaving many grappling with fears of sedition and forcing the government to condemn the action as dangerous and wrong. Le Pen, who lent her support to the letter early on, has since tried to play down its significance, arguing that it was simply a stark warning and not the first shot fired in a coming coup d’état. 

However, her association with the military malcontents may prove to be less controversial among the public than it has been for her fellow politicians. One poll of more than 1,600 French people carried out last week found that 58 percent of those surveyed  “support the words of the soldiers.” An overwhelming 84 per cent said they understood the views raised around the rise in violent crime, while close to three quarters also worried about the country disintegrating. It is clear that, despite attempts to champion the ‘French values’ agenda, the Elysée is out of touch with the public, and the stage could be set for a major upset at the national polls next year.

The honeymoon period for Macron, the first-term President who himself stormed to power in 2017 during a wave of discontent with the established parties, has long since worn off. Once a unifying figure with broad enough popular support to propel his new party, En Marche, from obscurity to majority, his time in office has been fraught with challenges that have chipped away at his fanbase. With civil unrest in the form of the long-running and violent ‘yellow vest’ protests over a sluggish economy, taxation and perceived social inequality, there has been staunch opposition to Macron’s proposed pensions and trade unions reforms.

Since then, his political rivals have been generally successful in casting him as an arrogant, isolated megalomaniac, obsessed with power and status but unable to connect with the working classes, from which much of the discontent has arisen. Unsurprisingly, in France as elsewhere, this is the group that has faced the most hardships during the pandemic. Macron has not yet announced his intention to run for a second term, but there are no guarantees that he would secure one if he does – and it is likely to be France’s traditional blue collar communities that would decide his fate.

This is the group that Le Pen has historically fared well with. Taking a drubbing in the head-to-head second round against Macron in 2017, she attracted only one in three votes across the country. Her strongholds were northern ex-industrial towns, scoring absolute majorities in cities that have largely been in decline in past years. If Macron’s sheen has worn off in the past four years, it is possible that she could extend her support out of these areas.

To facilitate this appeal, her party has dropped much of its historical baggage. Once known for supporting leaving the EU and ditching the Euro in order to return to the Franc, the National Assembly has revamped its policy platform in order to divest its image as a radical fringe party. Instead, its rhetoric has become one of reducing migration, rather than eliminating it, and picking up pet projects in popular spheres like animal rights and protecting the natural environment. For those looking for virulent nationalism, Le Pen is still the obvious candidate, but her outward turn towards a more acceptable form of popularism may yet help her pick up support from those who previously wrote her off.

Despite the National Assembly dropping its Frexit campaign, there are undoubted parallels between a potential Le Pen victory and the UK’s own decision to divorce from Brussels. If the veteran populist can clinch a win over her competitors, it will be on the backs of those who feel voiceless and overlooked by the current crop of politicians. Despite the fact that Le Pen is as close to political royalty as it is possible to get, following in the footsteps of her father, Jean-Marie, the former President of the National Front, she couches herself in the language of anti-establishmentarianism. Vote Le Pen to give the ruling class a shock, her message goes. That counter-culture instinct might never have worked for her father in his nearly 40-year tenure as the darling of the French far-right, but this time around the country could be more receptive.

However, the younger Le Pen’s road to victory is far from clear. While she leads in the polls against Macron, one member of her own party’s ruling council told Politico in recent weeks that “we all have the same conviction that Marine Le Pen won’t win the next elections.” For some in her camp, the perennial candidate is too personally divisive to be a popular messenger, even if her message is finding favour. And they might be on to something – 56 percent of French people surveyed for another recent study said that they see Le Pen as frightening. Other polls predict that, while she might give Macron a better run for his money in the second round than in 2017, she would still fall short of a narrow victory.

That said, with just under a year out until the vote, there is still all to play for. With France’s multi-stage voting process, second-preference votes are likely to count for everything. Xavier Bertrand, the former Minister standing to rejuvenate the country’s centre-right is polling a distant third, but he supports migration quotas and other measures that could indicate his supporters might choose Le Pen over the status quo. Likewise, the fourth-place candidate is far-left campaigner Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is arguably as Eurosceptic and anti-establishment as Le Pen. If his voters were to split generally for her, with the same kind of mentality as former Bernie Sanders supporters who ended up turning out for Donald Trump, it is possible that she could cobble together a winning coalition with France’s most fringe political demographics. As The Economist notes, the “odds of a Le Pen victory are no longer close to zero.”

After several years of shock public decisions, beginning with Brexit and Trump’s White House run, the certainty of France’s political establishment – where even Macron’s revolutionary rise from nowhere was a validation of the liberal-democratic order – may be under threat. For Le Pen, that could mean her third try is the charm.