Marine Le Pen was soundly beaten in Sunday’s presidential election as weary voters rallied once more to keep her Rassemblement National (National Rally) party from power. But the surge in support for far-right candidates begs the question of how long a creaking “republican front” of anti-Le Pen voters will hold in an increasingly polarised nation.
On her third attempt, Le Pen has moved several steps closer to the Élysée Palace, adding almost 3 million votes to her tally from 2017 and surpassing 40 percent of the vote. Not since World War II has the nationalist far right come this close to power in France.
