The consequences of Marine Le Pen
Sunday’s presidential run-off in France is likely to be a tight race between a centrist incumbent who embodies the liberal, pro-EU order and a radical outsider bent on dismantling it. Opinion polls give President Emmanuel Macron the edge but he will not trounce Marine Le Pen, as he did in 2017. A rematch victory for the far-right leader remains within the realms of possibility.
After five years in office, Macron has gained in international stature but lost in domestic novelty. His challenger is now the only one standing for change. And she has run a good campaign, toning down her anti-immigration rhetoric and focusing on pocket-book issues that matter most to ordinary people.
Ironically, she has been helped by the emergence of a shrill rival for the nationalist vote, the TV celebrity Eric Zemmour, who made her look almost stateswoman-like in comparison. She held her own in a head-to-head debate with Macron four with the poll. She is now in a better position to capture the wider protest vote than she was last time around. Perhaps a fifth of those who supported left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon — whom Le Pen narrowly beat in the first round — could back her in the second. Many more will abstain. Whatever happens, Macron will not benefit from the massive rally from the left that helped him cruise to victory in 2017.
France, in short, is not immune to the type of election shock that has been seen elsewhere, with populist politicians capitalising on anger against cosmopolitan elites. So what would happen if Marine Le Pen won?
The upheaval would be much greater for France than the shock votes of 2016 were for the UK and the US. Marine Le Pen rose not by seizing control of a mainstream party, but from out of left field — through a fringe group she inherited from her father and rebranded in her own smiling image. Popular as it was in small-town “peripheral France”, the National Rally (RN, formerly known as National front) has always been shunned by the establishment. Its leaders have no executive experience at national, or even regional, level. The UK’s post-Brexit cabinet and the Trump administration, which whatever their faults contained a few seasoned hands, will look like models of smooth operation compared with Présidente Le Pen’s team of novices.
But even assuming that her people quickly learn how to run a mid-sized world power with a nuclear arsenal, Le Pen faces formidable institutional obstacles. France does not have a straightforward presidential system: the government cannot survive without parliamentary backing. The RN and its allies currently have just nine deputies in the 577-seat National Assembly. That body will be renewed in June, but Le Pen cannot count on the surge of legislative support a new French president usually enjoys. The current voting system (first-past-the-post, two rounds) favours parties with deep local roots. Insurgents can break their hold through careful preparations, as Mr Macron’s upstart bunch in 2017 by poaching people from other parties, fielding candidates in each district and making tactical alliances where needed. The RN has done none of that. The chances of a parliamentary majority for President Le Pen are slim in the extreme.
Le Pen, of course, knows all this. This is why she plans to sideline parliament through referendums. Her signature policies — such as changes in immigration and citizenship laws, preference for French nationals over foreigners for social benefits, supremacy of French law over international treaties — all call for popular votes to amend the constitution. The problems here are many. France has a history of controversial referendums — even a democrat like Charles de Gaulle was accused of abusing them in the 1960s. As a result, the Constitutional Council is now widely recognized as the arbiter of the legitimacy of any referendum. Le Pen disputes this view and claims that a president can call one unilaterally. But short of sending the military into the council chamber — which she has not threatened to do — her plan to turn referendums into “a regular mode of functioning” remains a pipedream.
And even if the judges see the error of their ways and allow the president to bypass representative rule on a routine basis, insurmountable obstacles remain in her way. Ahead of any constitutional referendum, the proposed amendments need to be approved by both chambers of parliament. If the RN’s prospect of a working majority in the National Assembly are vanishingly small, they are nil in the Senate, an indirectly elected body that renews itself slowly and where radicals of any type are few.
A Le Pen victory will not turn France into a fascist dictatorship or an apartheid regime. The country’s armed forces have as much appetite for political power as their counterparts in the Americas, British or German military. The immediate risk, rather, is a full-blown constitutional crisis leading to a vacuum at the heart of government. Even if Ms Le Pen ends up ditching her radical manifesto and working within the constraints of the system, she will have unleashed forces beyond her control. Her supporters will find it easy to argue that the will of the people has been stymied, and cling to their revolutionary dreams all the more dearly, prolonging the turmoil.
The same is true of other aspects of Le Pen’s programme: they don’t have to be implemented to show their deleterious effects. Take economic policy: she wants to help struggling households though a raft of expensive measures — such as lower sales tax on energy, no income tax for under-30s, more generous state pensions — which she claims will be offset by a tax on financial wealth and various savings. Economists have shown her numbers make no sense. By adding to France’s sky-high public debt her measures would damage the state’s ability to secure the money it needs to stay afloat. But even the prospect of her victory has led to a surge in French government borrowing costs in early April. Actual victory would spook investors even more, increasing economic pain for the hard-working families she champions.
Le Pen’s stance on international affairs is particularly unsettling. She has dropped a previous pledge to abandon the euro and insists France will stay in the EU. But many of her pet policies– notably over treaty obligations and prioritizing French nations — set her on a collision course with the union. So does her position on Russia. She has condemned Vladimir Putin over the attack on in Ukraine, but opposes sanctions. Once the war is over she says she will seek alliances with Russia on some issues, including European security.
Marine Le Pen epitomizes a new type of European far-right movement — one that is not based, like fascism, on direct confrontation with democracies but uses democratic language to stoke nationalism, emphasize direct rule by a leader and undermine alternative centres of power. Even if she does not carry through with her most contentious policies, her rise to the top of a founding EU member would create unprecedented strains in a club founded on open borders and the rule of law. The future of the union would hang in the balance. One thing, however, is certain: on Monday morning Russian media would celebrate a major victory for the “multipolar democratic world order” it is seeking, with China’s help, to set up.
