The far right is knocking at the doors of power in France. Protests united by one sole ambition – thwarting Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in the forthcoming election – swept the country at the weekend, with up to 640,000 people turning out on Saturday 15 June. Many of them are desperate for an alternative to Le Pen and her protégé, Jordan Bardella. And after a week of intense negotiations, the French left have done the impossible and formed a New Popular Front in united opposition to the RN.
But the battle is far from over. National Rally took a third of the vote at the European elections, only slightly less than the combined total for Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance coalition, the moderate left party led by Raphaël Glucksmann, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (LFI). Previously, Macron was seen as the unifying candidate against the far right, while left-wing votes were split between several parties. But, now voters have deserted him, many on the left believe that the only solution is a coalition of their voters.
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