Since the announcement by the President of the Republic on Sunday evening of the dissolution of the National Assembly, a victory for the National Rally has never been so close. According to some projections, the RN could obtain, on July 7, between 235 and 265 seats, compared to 89 during the last legislature. So, what fly could have bitten Emmanuel Macron?
For some, the President of the Republic intends to slow down the dynamics of the RN by removing it from its advantageous status as an eternal opponent. If we follow this logic, the confrontation with power would expose the supposed incompetence of Marine Le Pen’s party to broad daylight, and ultimately to reduce the effectiveness of its populist rhetoric. “Macron concluded that power often allows radical parties to be tamed or to demonstrate their incompetence” estimated thus Janan Ganesh, star columnist of Financial Times.
A risky bet
“This idea that populists lose their appeal once they come to power has long dominated scientific literature, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” explains Daniele Albertazzi, science professor. policies at the University of Surrey, and co-author of the book Populists in Power (Routledge).
Emmanuel Macron would not be the first to make such a bet. Wolfgang Schüssel, former Federal Chancellor of Austria, agreed to bring into his coalition, in 2000, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) of Jörg Haider, which had come in second place in the legislative elections of October 1999 by collecting 26.9% of the votes. According to Paulus Wagner, a researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, “Schüssel said to himself that the best way to reverse the positive dynamic of the far right was to control it by involving it in a government coalition.” A winning bet, since “at the end of the coalition, in 2005, the far right had actually lost part of its support”, adds Paulus Wagner.
More recently, in Finland, the True Finns party came in second place in the 2023 legislative elections with 20.1% of the vote, allowing the populist party to join a government coalition led by conservative Petteri Orpo. After this historic shift to the right in Finland, particularly on the migration issue, the True Finns party lost the support of part of its electorate. During the last European elections, he achieved his worst score since entering the European Parliament in 2009, gathering only 7.6% of the votes, a drop of 6 points compared to 2019.
Hungary, Poland: the populist one-upmanship
Should we deduce from this that the RN’s coming to power could spell the end of its rise? According to researchers specializing in populism, this is moving a bit too fast. Today, the consensus around which the majority of them agree is on the contrary that the arrival in power of populist parties is not necessarily accompanied by moderation, and even less by a drop in support of the population”. In an article published in the academic journal Government and Opposition, political scientist Jakob Schwörer, for example, analyzed the Facebook publications of five European populist parties in power. The results of the study show that the moderating effect of government participation is in reality very limited, and strongly depends on the political context. For Daniele Albertazzi, “a certain number of experiences of populism in power in Europe in the last twenty years show rather that it is not accompanied by a drop in popular support. Just look at Hungary or Poland after the first Law and Justice government (PiS, far right)…”
Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is indeed an example of longevity. Since the Fidesz party came to power in 2010, Hungarian support for their Prime Minister has remained relatively stable over these fourteen years. But this stability was accompanied by a radicalization of the far right in power, with a strengthening of the executive, a reduction in the rule of law, repeated attacks on the independence and freedom of the media, the decline in public freedoms… Or the famous “illiberal democracy” that Orbán proudly promotes.
This radicalization has also been observed in Poland. After the victory of the Law and Justice party in the 2015 legislative elections, the exercise of power did not initially seem to have affected the progress of the far right. On the contrary, since in the 2019 legislative elections, the PiS won an overwhelming victory by gathering 43.6% of the votes. During these years, PiS attacked the independence of the judiciary and strengthened its control over public media. Since 2021, the party has experienced a slight decline due to rising tensions with the European Union and the multiplication of corruption scandals. In 2023, due to lack of a majority, he had to give way to a centrist coalition led by Donald Tusk. But the electoral setbacks of the ruling PiS are thwarted by the rise of an even more radical organization, the Confederation of Freedom and Independence, which obtained a historically high score of 11.8% in the European elections.
Italy and populist “normalization”
Should we nevertheless draw conclusions for France? For historian Marc Lazar, caution remains in order: “We cannot compare what is happening in France with the Hungarian or Polish experience, because these are countries which do not have the same democratic history, where the institutions are more fragile.” According to the professor emeritus at Science Po, we should instead look just on the other side of the Alps. “Italy is a real seismograph of French politics: our neighbor records the first tremors before they spread to France.”
After two years at the head of a right-wing coalition, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d’Italia) presented the European election as a referendum for or against her government action. If she did not reach the 30% announced by certain polling institutes during the campaign, her score of 28.8% confirms her power and testifies to the strength of the support she still enjoys in Italy. While in Hungary and Poland, the far right has become radicalized, the success of Fratelli d’Italia is based above all on a strategy of “normalization” and “responsibility.”
According to Daniele Albertazzi, Giorgia Meloni managed to maintain the support of her electorate without ever taking the risk of creating too strong an opposition which would jeopardize her power. “On the one hand, he explains, it satisfies its base by taking symbolic measures on themes which do not call into question its political future and which are relatively unanimous from the center right to the extreme right, such as the question migratory, where by tackling the rights of LGBTQ + At the same time, she is able to demonstrate a lot of moderation and a sense of responsibility on issues where the stakes are very high, such as Ukraine, the relationship with. the European Union, NATO…”.
In the same way, the desire to “respectabize” and “normalize” the National Rally largely explains the successes of Marine Le Pen. If we can consider it relevant, the fact remains that the comparison between the two countries has its limits. First, Italy is a parliamentary regime while the Fifth Republic is a semi-presidential regime. Next, the RN and Fratelli d’Italia have many points in common, but also share significant differences. On the economy, for example, the National Rally is much more interventionist and protectionist than its Italian counterpart.
And France, in all this?
So, what would happen if the RN came to power? It is too early to give a definitive answer without falling into political fiction. The different scenarios outlined here are all plausible and depend on too many factors. However, although they remain cautious, our three interlocutors, Marc Lazar, Daniele Albertazzi and Paulus Wagner, agree on one point: Emmanuel Macron’s bet is very risky and there is a good chance that simple participation in the power does not make it possible to stem the progress of the RN.
“What seems certain,” says Daniele Albertazzi, “is that once in power, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella will not be able to implement their entire program.” It therefore remains to be seen how the RN and its supporters will react in this scenario. If they continue their quest for respectability, then the scenario of “normalization” is to be favored. Jordan Bardella’s backpedaling on the issue of pensions is perhaps a first clue to the attitude that the RN would adopt once in power. The MEP announced, on France 2, that the promise of retirement at 60 with 40 annuities for everyone was not a priority, in a context where France must face the “wall of debt.”
On the other hand, can we really dismiss the scenario of radicalization out of hand? At present, there is nothing to provide a categorical no answer to this question. If the RN does not implement its program and if it does not obtain the promised results, part of its electorate could turn away from it. To avoid this, the leaders of the National Rally could be pushed into populist one-upmanship by presenting themselves as the defenders of a general interest stifled by the institutions. This would not be the first time that the Frontist party has opposed popular sovereignty and the rule of law. In April 2022, for example, Marine Le Pen praised her “referendum revolution” which should make it possible to “consult the only expert that Emmanuel Macron has never consulted: the people”.
Among all these uncertain projections, one thing is certain: in the event of a victory for the RN, France should plunge, in the coming months, into the unknown and the unprecedented.
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