It is not often that the election of deputy speakers to a parliament can be described as portentous. The appointment last week of vice-presidents (the equivalent of deputy speakers) of the French national assembly was almost unnoticed outside France. But it was historic, in an ominous way. Of the six vice-presidents, two were deputies of Rassemblement National (RN), the renamed far-right Front National.
At the parliamentary elections two weeks ago, the RN gained 89 deputies, a historic breakthrough. Nevertheless, the RN forms only a small bloc in the 577-seat national assembly. So how did the two RN candidates receive 290 and 284 votes respectively? By persuading large numbers of mainstream deputies to vote for them, leading to rumours and accusations of secret deals between Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc and the RN.
