Macron at risk of being lame duck

It remains to be seen whether the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France’s election is repeated in next Sunday’s run-off and brings her closer to winning control of the National Assembly and the reins of government in Paris. Despite winning 34 per cent of the vote – compared to 30 per cent for far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon’s New Popular Front alliance of Socialists, Greens and Communists, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist, pro-business Together alliance, which ran a distant third with 20 per cent, nothing is certain.

Political horse-trading and tactical voting are under way, as always in French elections, ahead of the decisive final ballot. Anything could happen. But what is clear is that Mr Macron, in calling a snap election just weeks from the Paris Olympics, has suffered a humiliating defeat. Ms Le Pen is closer than she has ever been to gaining real power.

Mr Macron called the poll in a fit of pique after his party was trounced in May’s European parliament elections. The popinjay French leader, who once immodestly compared his office to that of Jupiter, the ancient king of the gods, was confident he would retain control of the National Assembly. Instead, voter dissatisfaction over unwanted immigration and the cost of living delivered an outcome that could turn him into a lame duck for the rest of his second term, expiring in 2027.

Ms Le Pen’s party, described variously as “extreme right” and “hard right”, remains encumbered by memories of its earlier iteration under the leadership of her father, Jean Le Pen, providing a home for Nazis.

She has spent years trying to distance it from her father’s legacy and that of his associates, such as Pierre Bousquet, a member of the French division of the Waffen-SS during World War II. She changed the party name to National Rally after losing the presidential election to Mr Macron in 2017 but retained the tricolour flame, a fascist symbol, as the party’s logo.

The Wall Street Journal reports the party is “animated by widespread anxiety that France’s Muslim minority, one of Europe’s largest, is encroaching on the secular values of the French Republic”. Its success also carries dangers. As Jillian Kay Melchior of The WSJ’s editorial board wrote, the party “has harboured friendly ties with Russia”. Last year it opposed sanctions on Russian energy and abstained from voting for a France-Ukraine security pact that pledged support for Kyiv joining the EU and NATO. In 2022, it was embarrassed by the disclosure Ms Le Pen had accepted a $14.5m loan from a Russian bank. Such issues will be debated in coming days.