Mainstream European politicians have warned about the advance of the far right, after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) made historic gains in France’s snap elections, bringing the anti-immigration party closer than ever to power.
Official results showed the RN and its allies received 33% of the national vote, well ahead of the leftwing alliance New Popular Front on 28%, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc reduced to third place with 20% of the vote. It remains unclear whether Le Pen’s party will emerge as the largest in the final round of voting next Sunday, or if the French president will be confronted with a hung parliament, leaving the EU’s second-largest economy in chaotic stasis.
After the record-breaking gains became clear, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned about politicians who advocated for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and sought untrammelled power.
“They love Putin, money and power without control. And they are already in power or are reaching for it in the East or West of Europe. They are joining ranks in the European parliament,” he wrote on X.
Although he did not name parties, it is understood his remarks were triggered by the French elections. The comments also followed a decision by Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, to join forces with Austria’s far-right Freedom party and the Czech populist ANO group in an attempt to create a new alliance in the European parliament.
A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia was following the results of the French elections “very closely”, but Russian officials have played down any change in relations between Paris and Moscow.
“We should not expect an improvement in relations between Paris and Moscow after the legislative elections,” said Vladimir Dzhabarov, the vice-president of the foreign affairs commission, reported Agence France-Presse citing local media.
National Rally, including under its previous incarnation as the National Front, has historically been friendly towards the Kremlin; but its current candidate for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, has said he would stand by existing commitments to Ukraine, although he would not send troops or long-range weapons.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s allies celebrated. “Felicitations,” the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders wrote on X with a heart and two strong-arm emojis. National Rally’s advance follows Wilders’ Freedom party’s victory in Dutch elections last year that make it the biggest party in an incoming government, led by the technocrat Dick Schoof.
In Germany, Michael Roth, a prominent member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, laid some of the blame for the far right’s triumph at the feet of the German government.
“We didn’t ask ourselves enough how we could better support the pro-European liberal president, Macron,” Roth, the chair of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, told the German edition of Politico.
“We don’t show enough consideration to the political debates and problems of other countries,” he added, noting that the alternative to Macron “is indeed no longer [conservative ex-president Nicolas] Sarkozy but rather a hard-right nationalist like Marine Le Pen”.
If Le Pen gained power, “that would have dramatic consequences for us. France is the heart of united Europe. If that heart doesn’t beat robustly, the EU could have a heart attack”.
The previous German government led by Angela Merkel is widely seen as having failed to respond to Macron’s bold plans for the future of Europe after his 2017 victory.
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described Sunday’s French election results as a warning, but said he did not take the victory of the far right as a given.
“I think everything will depend on the socialist party, on its strength and on the unity of the left. There’s also a lesson from Spain there,” he told the Cadena Ser radio network on Monday morning. “You always beat the far right by governing and bringing in progressive policies that, one by one, give the lie to all the fake news that it spreads.”
