What does this mean for the nationalist far-right?
Let’s start with Marine Le Pen and her far-right party, the National Rally, because they’re sitting pretty right now. Le Pen has long embraced a Trumpian refrain that the mainstream political parties are inept and out of touch, so a situation like this helps prove her point. The National Rally continues to climb in the polls and should be considered a frontrunner for any potential snap elections or the next presidential election in 2027, which Macron is constitutionally barred from running in.
To understand the dynamics at play, you’ve got to rewind to June 9, 2024, when Macron’s centrist camp was drubbed at the hands of the far right in European elections.
European votes are sort of like the U.S. midterms. They don’t draw high turnout and often serve as a protest vote. Plus, polling had predicted a National Rally victory.
The victory wasn’t a surprise. Macron’s response was. He announced that evening he would dissolve parliament and call new snap elections as quickly as possible, gambling that a high-stakes domestic vote would block the far right’s seemingly unstoppable rise.
What he ended up with was a hung parliament roughly divided into three equal blocks. Most have proven willing to engage in the type of coalition-building exercises common in other European countries like Italy and Germany, despite repeated calls from Macron to do so.
The first prime minister to try to navigate the fractured legislature, Michel Barnier, lasted about three months before being kicked to the curb over his plans to slash the budget by billions to rein in runaway public spending. His predecessor, François Bayrou, lasted nine months but got the boot over his own unpopular budget, which included plans to ax two public holidays.