“Far Right” Leads In France

The U.S. is not the only country experiencing rare political drama. In France, the first round of voting for the National Assembly, France’s lower house, took place today. This is the snap election that Emmanuel Macron called a few weeks ago, to the surprise of nearly everyone, after the “far right” trounced the other parties in EU elections. The National Rally looks to have won a plurality of the vote:

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party was leading in France’s snap parliamentary elections on Sunday with 34% of votes, according to pollster Ipsos Talan. Le Pen called on voters to give the National Rally an “absolute majority” at parliament “so that Jordan Bardella can be appointed prime minister in eight days”.

Macron has three years to go on his presidency. A National Rally prime minister would give France a divided government.

The leftist union New Popular Front was projected to come in second place with 28.5% of votes.
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Macron’s centrist Ensemble won just 20.3% of votes.

In most instances, this first round of voting will narrow the list of candidates but not yet produce a winner. The decisive second round is coming up in a week.

Macron is conventionally described as a centrist or even center-right politician, but he has urged his followers to join with the leftist parties to block the “far right” from victory. The leftist parties really are extreme, as they want to impose price controls on staple commodities, enact a confiscatory wealth tax, and so on. Meanwhile, the National Rally is conventionally described as “far right” because it is skeptical of mass Islamic immigration–a view that is obviously shared by a great many Frenchmen.

The situation in Western Europe is not dissimilar to what we see in America. The political class unites against, and viciously smears, the parties that want to do something about immigration–legal or illegal. “Centrist” politicians would rather accommodate policies that are frankly socialist than allow curbs on immigration, a position that is hard to understand.

For an explanation of France’s convoluted electoral system, go here.

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