One in three French people will vote for the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in the European elections next weekend. This is what the latest poll before the vote, carried out by Ipsos and released this morning by, predicts Le Monde. According to the survey, the French hard-right party has grown further in the last two months, and could receive the preference of 33% of French people. It would be a historic success for Le Pen, who in recent years – after losing two presidential elections against Emmanuel Macron in the second round – has undertaken the delicate path of dédiabolisation, the exit from the extremist shadow cone of “votability”: abandoning some of the most intransigent workhorses – starting with the request to leave the EU; changing the name of the party (the one inherited from his father Jean-Marie was the Front National); finally taking a step back to launch the young Bardella (born 1995) as a symbolic face and leader of the European Championships. If it obtains this amount of votes, the RN could emerge from the EU vote as the most voted party in Europe. From the next day, in any case, it will be a significant force in the new European Parliament: the development of Marine Le Pen’s relations with the other strong woman of the European right, Giorgia Meloni, will be decisive in understanding how much this will “weigh”. Will the RN and the Brothers of Italy sit as in the last five years in two different groups – Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists – or will they start a process of merging the two families?
Competition from the left for Macron
The one who seems destined for an internal and international defeat, certainly, is Emmanuel Macron. Renaissance, the list that refers to the head of the Elysée, risks not receiving even half of the RN’s votes: it is now credited – together with its allies MoDem and Horizons – with 16%. The centrist bloc remains followed by the centre-left led at the European elections by the philosopher who entered politics Raphaël Glucksmann. His Public place who runs together with the Socialist Party could come third, at 14.5%. But the poll’s margins of error leave the Macronians fearing an overtaking from the left which would condemn them to a humiliating third place. The former Gaullists should remain further behind in France Républicains (7%) as well as the radical left of France Insoumise, which even two years ago had sent the leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon just a whisker away from the presidential run-off (he got just under 22%). On the opposite front, the figure of the polemicist Eric Zemmour also seems to have deflated politically: his Reconquete is credited with no more than 5% of the votes. The fact remains that by adding the potential results of RN and Reconquete, of Florian Philippot’s “Patriots” and of François Asselineau’s Republican Popular Union (approximately 1% each), 40% of the French are preparing to vote on Sunday for a formation of extreme right. In a week’s time, on Monday 10 June, Macron’s awakening risks being a nightmare.
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