Does Le Pen's Victory In France Pose Any Risks?
3- 1.07.2024, 14:40
- 9,724
The political scientist believes that the French National Association will have to change.
Marine Le Pen's right-wing National Association party won the first round of parliamentary elections in France, gaining 33.15% of the vote. In second place are the leftists. Macron's Alliance — the third, the fourth — the Republicans. What could be the scenarios in the second round?
Charter97.org spoke about this with Grigorij Mesežnikov, a Slovak political scientist and the President of the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO Bratislava).
— According to the electoral law, a second round should be held. It is possible that there will be certain agreements between some candidates in favor of those who are closer to these parties. I did not really delve into the mathematical predictions of the second round of the French elections, but according to the results of the first round, it is obvious that Macron's party will not win this election.
The best results in this election were shown by representatives of right-wing and left-wing radical forces. Marine Le Pen's party is, in fact, a right-wing radical force, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon represents the neo-communist left. So it is still difficult to accurately predict the results, you need to wait for the second round to see a more definite picture.
— Macron intends to withdraw candidates from the second round of parliamentary elections in more than 60 districts in order to prevent Marine Le Pen's National Association from gaining an absolute majority in parliament. Will this tactic help him?
— Apparently, he will withdraw his candidates in those districts where the left has good chances, from the left-wing radical bloc. But I am not sure that Macron's voters will support this party, because it used to be sharply criticized by the party of the current President of France, and the left responded to it very aggressively. We can say that for them, the left are ideological opponents, maybe less radical than Le Pen's party, which is like a red rag for them.
In general, of course, this tactic may partially weaken the results of Le Pen, but judging by the results of the first round of elections, so far her party looks preferable to a large number of Frenchmen. The very fact that Macron's party has suffered such a defeat is a strong blow for France, for moderate parties of this type.
After all, liberals in France have always enjoyed great support, and now they have lost their strong positions to representatives of radical parties. This will reformat the entire party system and, apparently, will affect the nature of the state, too, and it is quite possible that it will affect foreign policy.
— Should we be afraid of Le Pen's party, because we have already seen the example of Italy, where the right won, and Prime Minister Meloni, contrary to forecasts, actively supports Ukraine and takes a constructive position in the EU?
— There is a big difference between Meloni and Le Pen, because Marine Le Pen openly went to Moscow and directly supported Putin. Russia financed Le Pen's party. Nothing similar happened to Meloni or her party, that is, there were certain doubts about the nature of this party, which Meloni leads. There may have been some tendencies of some pro-Russian positions among some figures. But none of this was confirmed at the level of senior management, Meloni had no personal relationship with Putin, there is not and, I think, will not be in the future.
As for Le Pen, it is worth considering her contacts with the Kremlin and cases related to Moscow's financial support for her party. She, of course, will now seek to speak more moderately and try to take a more centrist position. Perhaps this will be due to less radical positions regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, in the sense that there will be softer positions towards Russia.
However, it cannot be disregarded that the candidate of this party, Jordan Bardella, for the post of prime minister in March this year congratulated Putin on his "re-election" to the post of president, and he spoke of Russia not as an opponent, but as a partner.
Maybe this will somehow change now, but it is hard to believe that there will be a complete transition of the right-wing radical party to a position of support for Ukraine. Plus the party of Mélenchon, they are also to some extent pro-Russian, the left party is not pro-Atlantic, it is also Eurosceptic. So, I think a very difficult time awaits France.
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