In a Paris courtroom, the first act of the 2027 French presidential election is already under way. On Tuesday Marine Le Pen began to answer judges’ questions in her appeal against a conviction relating to the embezzlement of European parliament funds. If she wins, the far-right leader will be free to run for the presidency for a fourth time. If the sentence is upheld, her 30-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, is almost certain to take her place in the race.
Having presented the original verdict as an assault on democracy by judges bent on thwarting her political ambitions, Ms Le Pen has softened her stance. If the appeals court is swayed by arguments that offences committed by her National Rally party were inadvertent, a five-year ban on running for public office may be reduced or overturned. Even if she loses, however, her political opponents may not be inclined to celebrate too enthusiastically.
Mr Bardella is seen by many voters as the likelier candidate to pull off a historic far-right triumph in 2027. Since Ms Le Pen’s conviction last March, he has performed a tricky balancing act, protesting her innocence while demonstrating his own credentials for taking her place. As party president, he has used the time to try to broaden its appeal beyond a mainly blue-collar base, wooing the traditional right and business interests.
More broadly, and ominously, the French far right may be dismantling the “republican barrier” which has hitherto blocked its route to the Élysée. Polling published this month in Le Monde suggests that Ms Le Pen’s legal troubles have had little or no impact on her party’s fortunes. Instead, its ideas are steadily penetrating the mainstream while retaining an insurgent, anti-establishment appeal.
More than 40% of respondents to the poll believed that the National Rally would improve the situation in France when it came to security, reindustrialisation, the quality of public services and the cost of living. Around one-third said that it was “the only party that can do things differently”. Growing numbers of voters are sympathetic to the policy of “national preference”, which would license discrimination against foreign residents in relation to housing, welfare and jobs.
Virulent ethnonationalism has, of course, always been at the heart of Ms Le Pen’s politics, and the same goes for Mr Bardella. But the failure of mainstream governments to protect living standards and boost growth is allowing the far right to posture as a “patriotic” solution to a wider socioeconomic malaise.
Mr Bardella’s assiduous courting of elites with promises of corporate tax cuts and deregulation represents a shift of emphasis, compared with Ms Le Pen’s focus on working-class concerns and the cost of living. But a strategy of being all things to all people is easier to pursue when there is no track record in power to critique.
As the United States actively seeks to undermine the European Union, and promote far-right nationalist parties as a kind of enemy within, the stakes in 2027 will be vertiginously high. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former adviser and outrider, has identified a far-right victory in France as a key stage in “killing” the EU.Whether their eventual opponent is Ms Le Pen or Mr Bardella, France’s mainstream parties have less than 500 days to find a way to see off a threat that has never been more real.
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