The Rassemblement National (RN) performed beyond expectations in the European election on Sunday, June 9, garnering 31.5% of the votes cast, according to initial estimates from the Ipsos institute for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24/RFI, Public Sénat/LCP Assemblée Nationale. The score represents a 40-year record for any French political party in the European elections. Not since Simone Veil’s right-wing coalition in 1984 (43%) had any party reached higher than the 30% mark.
Despite competition from another far-right list of candidates (Reconquête!, estimated at 5.5%), the RN improved on Bardella’s 2019 score (23.34%) by almost eight points. With almost twice as many votes as President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition, the RN is expected to send between 29 and 31 members to the European Parliament, making up the body’s largest delegation.
With just over one in two registered voters taking part in the election, Bardella is expected to surpass the number of votes obtained by RN leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of the 2022 presidential election (23.15%), with well over 8 million ballots.
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This score is the culmination of a campaign that began back in September 2023, and in which the RN did its utmost to make a vote centered on domestic matters. It attempted to turn the European race into a referendum for or against Macron. It’s a game to which the government willingly lent itself, with the French president and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal throwing themselves into the campaign in the last month.
Buoyed by Bardella’s high media exposure and a succession of news that played to his advantage, the RN benefited from a campaign focusing on its favorite issues: immigration and insecurity. Bardella capitalized on his positive image within a segment of the electorate that had previously turned away from the far right, notably those over 60.
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The repeated arguments used by his opponents to discredit Bardella, such as his views on the European Union and Russia, his absenteeism from the European Parliament and his radical European allies, clearly had no impact on the choices made by the RN’s traditional electorate, or by former right-wing voters.
Similarly, the presence of competing far-right parties did not lower the RN’s score. Marion Maréchal’s Reconquête! list saved face by obtaining 5.5% of the vote, according to initial estimates, bringing the far-right’s cumulative score to almost 37%. The two parties are likely to sit in separate groups at the European Parliament.
Source link : https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/06/09/2024-european-elections-far-right-rassemblement-national-achieves-historic-success_6674319_5.html
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Publish date : 2024-06-09 07:00:00
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