But beating flawed polls is not the same as winning. The numbers show that the Rally National, which until recently seemed out of touch, continues to grow fast. In 2017, the party won just eight seats in France’s 577-seat National Assembly; two years ago it won 89, or 15 percent of the total in parliament. On Sunday, it won 143 seats, a quarter of the total.
Indeed, opinion polls had predicted that the Rally National would do even better, perhaps winning more than 200 seats and forcing President Emmanuel Macron to hand over control of a new government. And sure enough, the Rally National finished third on Sunday, behind a left-wing coalition and, by a narrow margin, Macron’s own coalition.
But disparity in expectations aside, the National Rally’s progress – a 60 percent increase in seats in just two years – is astounding.
Beyond the numbers, there are three big reasons to be optimistic about the National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen. We might call them the Méloni effect, the Bolloré effect, and the Macron effect.
Meloni is Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose Italian Brotherhood party, like Le Pen’s National Rally, can trace its origins to fascist supporters during World War II. Like the National Rally, the party has long been seen as an affront to European democratic values.
But Meloni, a shrewd strategist, had one big advantage that could help her win: Heading into Italy’s 2022 general election, her party was the only one of the major parties that had never been in a coalition government, which meant it hadn’t had to shoulder the responsibility for the chronic economic stagnation and discontent that has come with successive governments of the left and right.
Ms Le Pen now occupies a similarly enviable position in France: Having failed to secure a majority in parliament in Sunday’s elections, the country is likely to fall into gridlock, political unrest and perhaps outright dysfunction for the remaining three years of Mr Macron’s second and final term.
His centrist movement has little in common with the hastily-conceived four-party left-wing coalition that helped stifle the Rally National’s expansion, beyond mutual distrust and personal hostility. Le Pen will rise above those quarrels and discord, just as Meloni did before he took power. And French voters, who have spent the last few decades rotating between right, left and Macron’s centrist coalition, may reward the only party untainted by rising prices and unstable public services, as Italian voters did.
The second of the National Rally’s long-term strategic assets is Vincent Bolloré, a billionaire corporate raider and one of Europe’s wealthiest individuals. His family company owns a large part of the French media, providing services not only to Le Pen’s party but also to more extreme right-wing and pro-Russian figures.
Bolloré is often compared to Rupert Murdoch, as no other man has such a commanding share of France’s major TV and radio news stations, tabloid newspapers, famous magazines like Paris Match and the country’s biggest publishing companies. And by amplifying extremist voices, his media outlets have championed the far-right Le Pen and bolstered her years-long effort to rebrand her National Rally as a mainstream party.
Ms. Le Pen’s most useful asset may be Mr. Macron himself. His coalition lost a third of its seats in Sunday’s election, a disastrous result even as opinion polls predicted it would do better. Imperious and egotistical, Mr. Macron has become the object of scorn across all political factions.
The main opposition faction, the far-left, has teamed up with Mr Macron’s allies to block the Rally National candidate, coming in first in Sunday’s vote. Lacking the votes to form a government on its own, the left, or parts of it, may have no choice but to form a coalition of convenience with Mr Macron’s camp if France is to avoid paralysis.
For now, that seems unlikely given the ideological differences between the two sides, but if such an alliance were to form, and there may be no other way to form a government, the Rally National would be the only major anti-Macron force, a desirable position in France these days.
Ms. Le Pen remains the favorite to run for president in 2027 just as she was before Sunday’s vote. But now she holds a larger share of seats in France’s parliament. The euphoria of her opponents, who limited her share of the vote in Sunday’s vote, is understandable. It also ignores the seismic forces working in her favor across a country where discontent runs deep.
