A creeping sense of unease is evident across the EU’s institutions ahead of this week’s European elections. For some time now, polls have indicated significant seat gains for Europe’s far-right parties.
France leads those countries which are expected to send a high number of far-right MEPs to Brussels, with its Rassemblement national (National Rally, formerly National Front prior to its 2018 re-branding) set to push president Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party into second place.
Leader of the Rassemblement national is Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old who was reared in a Paris housing estate. He took over the party leadership from Marine Le Pen in 2021 and is predicted to win around 30% of the French vote.
At a campaign rally last week in a packed leisure centre in Hénin-Beaumont near Lille in north-east France, the duo were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd singing “Marine, on t’aime” amidst a soundtrack of 1980s French rock ballads. The room was awash with blue, white and red. Many wore caps carrying campaign slogans in the style of a Trump rally.
Younger voters flocked to the event. Mr Bardella is smooth-talking and social-media-savvy and has pulled in a much younger demographic, many of whom are attending a political rally for the first time.
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“It’s my first and it’s an honour being here for Jordan Bardella”, one 17-year-old high school pupil told me. “He’s 28 – he’s young. We’re young and we can easily identify ourselves with him.”
A 21-year-old law student explained how Bardella connected particularly well with a younger crowd online. “I’ve always said it shouldn’t be the job of citizens to go to politics, but politics should come to the citizens. It’s what Bardella has been able to do with a youthful and dynamic communication strategy.
“People say he takes a lot of selfies. But when you do that, you’re close to people – you connect with them.”
Nathalie Brack, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science of the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, specialises in the far-right and explained how his approach to social media outdid other parties. “On Tiktok he’s doing very well,” she said.
“Radical parties are much more aggressive on social media. They are often better at using visuals. The structure of social media is helping them in the way they are conveying messages – often very simplistic - which work better than trying to explain all the nuances of a debate,” she added.
Rassemblement national has more than 1.3 million followers on the video-streaming platform circulating reels, stories and fast-cam interviews. This social media armoury was evident in April’s Ifpop poll, which had 32 percent of 18-to-25 year-olds saying they’d vote for the party under Jordan Bardella.
On the stage at Hénin-Beaumont, Marine Le Pen attacked the current government, saying: “Who today can claim that looking at the France of 2024 it is better than 2017? Everything is in the red.”
Bardella’s speech was less punchy but still a crowd-pleaser as he called for a vote for change on June 9 when France goes to the polls. “It’s not just a vote of anger,” he said, “it’s a vote of hope; a vote for the French identity and against a flood of migrants.
“It’s a vote for us to exist and not be wiped out. A vote for France to live on against those who would rather see us disappear.”
The party’s line on Europe and anti-immigration, is popular, though the 21-year-old law student did not support Macron’s “federalist” vision for the bloc. “We have to change the rules – and that starts by these elections”, he said.
The Rassemblement national changed its own rules a few years back. Formerly a party that backed a Frexit, it shifted to staying in the bloc but pushing for reform from within.
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The senator for the Pas-de-Calais constituency in the north-east of France, Christopher Szczurek, said the party had changed tack in line with the nation’s general consensus on Europe. “We saw how French people weren’t ready [to leave the EU],” he said. “We took this into consideration and it made no sense for us to continue to push for it when the French nation was against it. We’ll change things from within,” he added.
Opponents see this as a point of weakness. This became evident during a televised debate last week between Bardella and the French Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, a Macron appointment in January this year.
The Renaissance party candidate, Rachel-Flore Prado said. “The Rassemblement national was advocating for Brexit and today they do not dare to advocate for a [French-style] Brexit. Today, French people are pro-European. The EU has proven to be of great help to people to fight against crises.”
Nathalie Brack pointed out though, that these very crises had in fact also fuelled parties of the far-right across the EU bloc. “They can mobilise on discontent and disappointment,” she said, “and the idea that the government or the European Union is not doing enough or the right thing.
“All the [far-right] parties share populism. They have a rhetoric that says ‘we are in a permanent crisis and we are the saviour of the people, so you have to vote for us’.”
The French senator for Europe Ecology the Greens and co-chair of the European Green party, Mélanie Vogel blamed other parties for the far-right’s success in the polls and warned of the consequences. “What’s at stake on 9 June is existential for Europe,” she said. “It was built on the idea that we should never go with the far-right.
“They are there to destroy our democracy, to fight against our fundamental rights and values across the globe and now they want to destroy what we have done in terms of the planet. They […] are fuelled by the weakness and cowardice of democratic parties who do not stand up against them.”
The challenges for the far-right though, may come from within. Internal strife and a raft of scandals surrounding Germany’s AfD party have seen its former ID alliances remove it from the parliamentary group.
The greater challenge for the incumbent centrist party in France may not be on an EU level but at home as Macron enters the second half of his second term. Many believe that Mr Bardella is eyeing Mr Macron’s hot-seat for 2027. As he continues each day to rally younger voters – online and offline – he is building a formidable support base.
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