[Interview] Far-right Le Pen in the Élysée could pull France out of Nato’s military command, French political scientist warns

For more than a year, Jordan Bardella had been preparing to run for head of state for the National Rally. But those plans have been disrupted by a recent court ruling that shortened the election ban on far-right leader Marine Le Pen and allowed her to run. Jean-Yves Camus, a French political scientist specialising in far-right extremism, explains in an interview how the National Rally would want to change France if it won. What we ask in the interview: How will the verdict against Marine Le Pen influence the presidential polls? How will France change if Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella becomes president? Does the National Rally (RN) have a coherent electoral programme? Will France, if RN wins, move away from the EU’s traditional foreign policy? Could a far-right victory in France mean a deeper transformation of the EU? How can the recent verdict concerning Marine Le Pen influence the upcoming presidential election? The first consequence of that verdict was that until 7 July we were not sure who would be the National Rally’s presidential candidate – Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella. Le Pen decided to run, while Bardella had been at the centre of attention for several months. Most observers expected a sentence and a ban on Le Pen’s candidacy, so the court’s decision surprised them greatly. At a certain point Bardella definitely believed he would be the candidate and that this would free him from Marine Le Pen. In the end, things turned out differently. The consequence for him is that, if Le Pen wins the presidential election, he will become her prime minister, at least according to what she said earlier. But in the party’s backrooms and beyond, people say he is too young for the highest office. Next month he will be thirty-one, which is really very young. If I remember correctly, the youngest head of government in Europe was the Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who was thirty-one when he was appointed. For someone to become president at thirty-one, most people do not want that, because they say Bardella lacks… perhaps not competence, but experience. He has never been elected in his own right. For example, when you are elected to the European Parliament, you are on the party list, you are its number one, but you are not the only one elected from it. And he has never been an MP or a mayor, he has no local or national political experience at all. Many people inside the party were therefore quite afraid that he would not be the right choice. He is popular on social networks, but that is something completely different from being elected president. The second consequence is the impact on public opinion. The court’s decision to allow Le Pen to run surprised everyone and, three days after the verdict, that is around Saturday (10 July), opinion polls showed that Marine Le Pen actually had huge support, between 32 and 35 percent. But that does not mean she is able to win. At this point we know that she is very likely to reach the second round. My prediction is that she will get there and that from the centre-right to the far left some kind of united front of all those who oppose the National Rally will emerge, similar to 2017 and 2022. Le Pen will therefore certainly face very strong resistance – perhaps from the centre-right candidate Édouard Philippe as the most likely option, or alternatively from the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. MP Marine Le Pen speaking in the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament. Source: Assemblee Nationale If Le Pen faces Mélenchon in the second round, she really has a chance, because Mélenchon is too left-wing for most voters. But if she stands against Édouard Philippe, he will say: “Look, a vote for the National Rally will not get you anywhere. It is an extremist party, just as Mélenchon is an extremist. So please avoid any risky vote. Let us choose responsibility for the future of the French economy and for France’s image abroad. I am a former prime minister, I have been in politics for twenty years, I am the mayor of a large city, so I am the best choice.” And that could work. Nevertheless, what changes in France can we expect if next year the presidency is won by a National Rally candidate? How would the situation differ if they also had a majority of MPs in the National Assembly? The National Rally’s core idea is that all major reforms must be put to a referendum. Everything they want to change, from immigration policy to the stance towards the European Union, they plan to address through referendums. We are not used to that way of decision-making in France. We have had several referendums, but this is only one option. It is not the usual way of deciding on new policies. Under normal circumstances, when you want to introduce new legislation in France, you draft a bill, it goes to the lower or upper house, and there is a process during which the bill is voted on. In fact, we need to remember that the National Rally is above all a populist party proclaiming that power must be in the hands of the people. It is for the people to decide. But how are people supposed to decide? According to them, it should not be through parliament, but through direct voting, that is, referendums. On the basis of what they said earlier, once they are elected they will start with a referendum on immigration. The question might be something like: “Do you want to continue accepting immigrants, or do you want to stop it?” But does that mean anything at all? It is the kind of question that in fact resolves nothing. We are bound by international treaties and by European Union policy. MP Marine Le Pen speaking in the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament. Source: Assemblee Nationale So if a majority of French people say we should continue accepting migrants, the National Rally will lose. And if a majority of citizens say we must stop immigration, that does not translate into any specific step they can take. As I just mentioned, we are bound by international treaties. So this way of doing politics, where you go directly to the people and tell them “You should vote in a referendum and we will implement whatever you say,” is simply false. So even if the National Rally won the presidency and a parliamentary majority, it would still not manage to change French migration policy? That depends on other factors. Normally, elections to the National Assembly take place one month after the presidential election. If the National Rally wins a majority there, it will be able to pass laws. But then the question arises whether the laws they adopt will be compatible with our constitution. All laws passed by parliament must go through the Constitutional Council before they can enter into force. And for example, at the moment the Constitutional Council says that if there were legislation that established different rights for citizens and for foreigners, it would not be compatible with the French constitution. The National Rally will therefore face many obstacles, including possible resistance from the Constitutional Council, which, by the way, the party would like to abolish as part of its institutional reform. The Constitutional Council is the highest institution of judicial power in France. Its role is likened to a constitutional or supreme court, although it is not a court. It assesses the constitutionality of legal acts and oversees the electoral process. It can also decide to remove the president from office if it finds him or her unfit. But as you say, there are two possibilities. The first is that they win a majority of seats in the parliamentary elections, so they will have the president, the government and a parliamentary majority. And then, of course, they will be able to change things. Perhaps not absolutely everything, but they will have all the main instruments of power in their hands.