Emmanuel Macron visited Oradour-sur-Glane on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary since the village in central France was liquidated by SS troops. Laying a wreath at the site where 643 Frenchmen, women and children were massacred, the president of the Republic declared that: ‘We will remember Oradour, always, so that history never starts again’.
That was a veiled reference to the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which crushed the opposition in Sunday’s European elections. In 96 of France’s 101 Departments, the National Rally – led by Jordan Bardella – came out top, and their triumph in France’s towns and villages was overwhelming. Villages such as the rebuilt Oradour sur Glane, for instance, where Bardella took 36 per cent of the vote, more than twice that of any other candidate.
The stories of sexual crimes are too many and too gruesome to mention
This was the election where the National Rally achieved its long sought after ‘normalisation’. Under the leadership of its founder, the swaggering far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, it was a party of machismo and hostility.
In 2002, when Le Pen caused a political earthquake in France by reaching the second round of the presidential election, he had the support of only 11 per cent of the female vote. When Marine Le Pen replaced her father as party leader in 2011, she began to woo more female voters. In the 2019 European elections, a fifth of women voted for the National Rally. In 2024, the figure is 30 per cent, only two per cent shy of the male vote.
Once the choice of the white provincial middle-aged working-class, the National Rally is now a party that appeals to all demographics. Bardella was the most popular among the 18-34 age group with a third of their vote (second was the far-left La France Insoumise [LFI] candidate, Manon Aubrey, on 20 per cent). He scored nearly as well with the over-65s, attracting 26 per cent of their ballots, the same as Macron’s Renaissance party.
The Bardella effect was also evident in the increased turnout for the National Rally among middle managers who, hitherto, have not been supportive. Eighteen per cent voted for Bardella, more than any other party.
Will these demographics continue to vote for Le Pen in the snap parliamentary election called by Macron for 30 June? Yes, according to a poll published last night, that had the National Rally on 34 per cent, way out in front of the left-wing coalition. The president’s party came a distant third on 19 per cent.
No wonder that Marine Le Pen was in genial mood when she appeared on the primetime news on Monday evening. Often defensive and grouchy confronted with journalists, she beamed as she reflected on the European election success and looked forward to the impending legislatives.
She knows that between now and 30 June, her party will come under relentless attack. There have already been warnings that her party would doom the French economy. Maybe it would, but it’s not the economy, stupid: it’s insecurity that troubles the average French voter. The elderly, and women, in particular, are flocking to the National Rally because they are frightened and demoralised.
Several thousand far-left activists took to the streets in Paris
Violent crime is out of control. Rapes, assaults and attempted murders have soared. North African drug cartels have expanded their business out of Marseille and Paris, establishing thriving operations in towns and cities across France. They kill without compunction and corrupt officials. Last month, a group of Mexican magistrates visited Paris to warn them of the gravity of the situation in France.
It’s a month since two prison guards were executed at a motorway toll booth as a prisoner was freed from a van. Prime minister Gabriel Attal vowed that they would be hunted down and caught. They haven’t.
The stories of sexual crimes are too many and too gruesome to mention. But they happen frequently, in every corner of France, to women of all ages, all classes, all ethnicities. No one is safe.
And what happens if a woman dares to speak out, to say that the man who violated them was in the country illegally? They are denounced as racist in some left-wing quarters, more often than not by the same people who celebrate Hamas and who have failed to properly condemn the terrifying rise in anti-Semitism in France since 7 October.
Hamas’s attack on Israel, and LFI’s refusal to properly condemn it, had caused a rupture within the French left, but on Monday the centre-left Socialists, Communists, Greens and LFI announced they will ally to fight the parliamentary elections.
In recent weeks, Raphael Glucksmann, who led the Socialists’ European election campaign, has criticised LFI for its anti-Semitism, a view shared by 92 per cent of France’s Jewish community (to which Glucksmann belongs). Today, he is in alliance with them.
Several thousand far-left activists took to the streets in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities on Monday to vent their anger against the success of Le Pen’s party. Antifa banners were on display, along with various placards denouncing the ‘fascist’ National Rally. The evening ended, as it often does on such occasions, with violent clashes with the police.
Perhaps that was another reason Marine Le Pen was all smiles in her Monday evening interview. She knows that the silent majority listen to Macron and they look at the left, and what do they then do? They vote for her.
Watch Andrew Neil discuss the rise of Marine Le Pen on Spectator TV:
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