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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 JUNE 2024 ANALYSIS Far-right trouble in France IN France, the gains of the far- right have led to the gamble of the year: French President Em- manuel Macron is going for broke by calling for a snap elec- tion against his nemesis, Marine Le Pen. It is one of the boldest moves ever for the liberal, centrist president whose policies have angered many in France and have failed to slow down the ad- vance of Le Pen's National Rally (RN), the successor to the Front National. Le Pen may be expected to even win these parliamentary elections, a situation that would lead to a far-right parliament under the Macron presidency. Macron may seem to be betting that this would pave the way for Le Pen to once again lose the presidency in 2027 – which he is not contesting, after winning the presidency twice. RN got 31.4% of the vote in the European election, getting 30 out of 81 French MEPs. Ma- cron's party Renaissance, part of the Ensemble coalition, gained 13 seats with just under 15% of the vote. It was a resounding victory for Le Pen's anti-migra- tion party. What happens if the RN wins the forthcoming French elec- tions? It would possibly see RN's 28-year-old Jordan Bardella be- ing offered – perhaps – to act as Macron's prime minister if they win a majority in parliament (Bardella is actually an MEP). The gamble for Macron is to throw Le Pen's party right into the heart of government, hoping it will lose steam under pres- sures of governing, with Le Pen having to carry any failures right into the 2027 presidential race against her future challenger. By that time, once again Ma- cron will hope that France's centrist, democrat and progres- sive forces will pull together to prevent Le Pen from entering the Élysée. It is a situation that has long been playing out in France: In 2002 it was Front National founder Jean-Marie Le Pen who edged into the run-off against Jacques Chirac; the centre-right president was accorded 82% of the vote by an electorate that in- cluded left-wing voters putting a peg on their nose to keep Le Pen out. In 2017, Le Pen's daughter faced Macron in their first en- counter, losing by 34% to 66.1%; in 2022, Le Pen's vote increased to 41.4% while Macron's fell to 58.6%... what would happen in a new presidential race where Le Pen's party is however tried and tested in power? As in Malta, Brussels is seen as a distant entity whose leg- islation does not immediately impact upon short-term inter- ests, so the European election is usually where the protest vote is expressed most strongly. But the French legislative election is a two-round vote – being held soon on 30 June and 7 July – which historically has favoured, again just as in Malta, the tradi- tional parties. This mainstream rallying is what allowed Macron to beat Le Pen twice in the last presidential elections. Macron knows that in the snap election, the RN will win more seats but not enough to gov- ern – far-right candidates will find it hard to either win 50% in the first round or a run-off. But it's unclear which voters will be mobilised in this snap election. Usually, new presidents find it easier to mobilise a strong ma- jority in the parliamentary elec- tions. And in December 2023, a leaked poll from centre-right Les Républicains showed that the RN could possibly elect over 250 lawmakers – they currently have 88 in the 577-seat assem- bly – a situation that could force Macron to nominate a Nation- al Rally prime minister, who would be in charge of the setting the government's policies. Macron's daring move now needs him to mobilise support- ers against the far-right threat – the question is, will this rallying cry work today? Even inside the centre-right conservatives Les Republicains, not all is right: their own pres- ident Éric Ciotti was expelled this week for attempting to seal a deal with Le Pen's RL, in se- cret, for the upcoming elections. Trouble in Germany Outside of Le Pen's pan-Eu- ropean ID group, lies the other far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), celebrating a "historic" second place finish, ahead of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD). For the EU, any of its two be- hemoths landing in the hands of the far-right is a nightmare scenario. Le Pen's RN party has softened edges when compared to the sharp corners of her fa- ther's FN. But while Marine certainly is no longer a propo- nent for exiting the EU after the Brexit experience, her party has abstained on aid to Ukraine in the war against Russia, wants to leave NATO's integrated com- mand, and opposes many of the EU's globalist ambitions, which would mean dead-legging many of the larger legislative packages on climate for example. While Macron responded to defeat with a snap elec- tion, Scholz has been absent in explaining the SPD's de- feat. There is no early election planned, but calls for new elec- tions for the German ruling co- alition are being made clearly in the German press: with just 31% of Germany voters sup- porting one of the three parties – the SPD, the Greens, and the Free Democrat Party – in Ger- many's coalition even amid re- cord voter turnout. Added to Scholz's headaches is the infighting and problems afflicting his governments, now officially one of the most un- popular government in modern German history, with over two- thirds of Germans expressing The European elections deliver gains to an emboldened, yet fractious far-right motley of Eurosceptic, anti-immigration xenophobes, and Russia-friendly parties. MATTHEW VELLA reports