John Keiger John Keiger

The remarkable rise of French sovereignism

Michel Barnier (Photo: Getty)

The French presidential campaign reveals French voters’ widespread urge to roll back EU powers. The top five candidates for the April 2022 elections (Emmanuel Macron excluded) have French national sovereignty, ‘taking back control’ and a concomitant reduction in EU powers as main planks of their manifestos. What the French refer to as ‘sovereignist’ policies clearly meet the expectations of French voters as opposed to the globalism and ever-more-Europe favoured by Emmanuel Macron. But it is the means of taking back control proposed by the five presidential candidates that is explosive.

All opinion polls regularly show these ‘sovereignist’ candidates garnering some 65 per cent of French support. The Harris Interactive poll of 3 November confirms the pattern: Éric Zemmour (17-18 per cent), Marine Le Pen (15-16 per cent), Xavier Bertrand (14 per cent), Valérie Pécresse (10 per cent), Michel Barnier (9 per cent). By contrast, candidates representing pro-EU policies – exclusively on the left – garner a mere 14 per cent: the Green’s Yannick Jadot on 8 to 9 per cent and the official Socialist candidate and Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, on a humiliating 5 per cent.

Yet ‘sovereignism’ is not restricted to the right. The leading contender on the left is the veteran radical of French elections Jean-Luc Mélenchon (8 per cent) of La France Insoumise, whose anti-Europeanism is legendary since France rejected the EU constitution in the 2005 referendum. He even campaigned – in vain – to have the EU flag removed from the French parliament on the grounds that only the ‘tricolour’ was specified in the French constitution. The Communist candidate, as well as the former socialist minister under Francois Hollande, Arnaud de Montebourg, are also distinctly Eurosceptic, but both only garner a few per cent each.

The French are masters in wielding legalistic, text-based constitutional arguments

With Emmanuel Macron polling at 23 to 24 per cent in the first round, it is clear that pro-EU candidates represent well under 40 per cent of voting intentions.

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