The political signals coming from France are ominous. According to one poll last week, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) has increased its lead to a runaway 15 points ahead of June’s European elections. For Emmanuel Macron, who pledged to use the French presidency to halt the rise of the far right, all indicators point to a humiliating defeat that would overshadow the remainder of his second term. But ahead of what will surely be the most important presidential election for a generation, in 2027, the numbers also send a powerful message to France’s perennially divided left.
Add up support for the four main progressive parties, which are running separate European campaigns, and their combined share of the vote comes within touching distance of the RN. The recent default setting in French politics has been a choice between Mr Macron’s technocratic centrism and the nationalist, xenophobic right – which has benefited from the disappearance of industrial life that had sustained workers’ participation in the political left. But manifestly, the space for a viable alternative is there. The difficulty lies in finding a way to occupy it successfully.
