There is a certain impulse that springs up inside many French people whenever they see danger lurking. For them, the danger is the extreme right, parties like Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN). And this impulse – something that comes from long ago and that is mixed with the conviction that democracy is defended vote by vote – leads them to elect candidates who are far from their ideas. With one goal: to prevent the RN from coming to power.
Is he republican fronta fundamental term in the political dictionary of contemporary France. In other countries it is called the cordon sanitaire. In France it designates the union of all those who consider themselves republicans – left, centre, right – against those they believe threaten the Republic. And this republican front has been resurrected in the legislative elections of 7 July.
It had been given up for dead several times. Over the years it had weakened. For some it had ceased to make sense, since the RN presented itself as a very republican party. Like everyone else, on Sunday left-wing citizens mobilised and voted massively for centrist and right-wing candidates. And – to a lesser extent, but still massively – centrist voters, and some right-wing voters, voted for left-wing candidates.
All to prevent the far right from gaining a sufficient majority in the National Assembly. And they succeeded. Le Pen’s RN, winner of the first round of elections on June 30 and favourite in the second, came in third, behind the centrist bloc affiliated with President Emmanuel Macron and the winner in seats, the left-wing coalition New Popular Front.
A few days earlier, the leaders of the center and the left had ordered that their candidates with the least chance of winning in the elections withdraw from the race. finals triangular. Voters – two-thirds of those on the left and half of those in the Macronist centre – followed the order and voted, respectively, for centre or right-wing candidates and for left-wing candidates so that the RN candidate would not prevail.
There is a common criticism of the Republican front, coming from Le Pen’s party, but not only. And that is that the forehead denies the representation of millions of French people. In these legislative elections, the RN was the party with the most votes, and yet the union of almost all against it has left it out of power again amid calls to defend the Republic.
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“People may end up seeing in this the expression, the clarification of the relationship between the elites and democracy,” warned political scientist Dominique Reynié of the liberal think tank Fondapol after the first round. “It’s like saying to them: ‘Democracy is fine, provided you vote for me. If not, it’s a problem.’”
A significant part of the French electorate, at least a third, may feel singled out, with the feeling that they are being barred from participating in the democratic game. The risk of the cordon sanitaire is that it will end up fuelling extremist voting, even if it has started to work again.
Historical memory
There were immediate reasons for this mobilization on Sunday against Le Pen: her campaign mistakes and messages that revived the historical identity of a party with roots in the xenophobic far right. But there is something else: what political scientist Vincent Martigny describes as “a historical memory of the fact that the last time the far right was in power was during World War II.”
“I am surprised at how well the Republican front has worked this time,” says Martigny, a professor at the University of Nice. “It has worked better than ever in its history since 2002.”
The year 2002 was the high point of the Republican front. Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of the current leader of the RN, surprisingly qualified for the second round of the presidential elections, defeating the then Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. Le Pen was up against President Jacques Chirac, a conservative.
Millions of French leftists believed that what was at stake was more than the traditional differences between left and right. What was at stake was the essence of the Republic in the face of the rise of someone like Le Pen, an old-fashioned ultra who was never interested in the process of ideological cleansing that his daughter would embark on years later.
So the left voted for the conservative Chirac, and Chirac defeated Le Pen with 82% of the vote. It was 15 years before another Le Pen, Marine, qualified for a second round. And Macron defeated her with 66% of the vote. In 2017, it was no longer as many as in 2002, but it was more than in 2022, when Macron was re-elected, but it did not even reach 60%.
The Republican front is reviving at a time when the RN’s coming to power seemed more likely. But there is something new, according to Martigny: “This time it has not only benefited the right as happened in 2002, 2017 and 2022.” The expert identifies Macron with the right, although the president has always presented himself as a politician “neither left nor right.”
“For left-wing voters,” the political scientist continues, “giving up [de su preferencia en favor de un candidato republicano] It is a custom that is almost part of their identity when they consider that the extreme right is on the verge of power.”
“But now,” Martigny adds, “for the first time it works the other way around. That is to say, the left has benefited from a transfer of votes from the centre and the right in varying proportions, less important than in the other direction, but still….”
Will this Republican front work in the future? Or are these elections its swansong? “I don’t know,” Martigny replies. “For years it has been considered dead and buried, and people have said: ‘this is the last time, it will never work again.’”
On the eve of the second round, historian Pierre Rosanvallon warned: “Now the French realise that it is no longer enough to say: ‘We must put up a barrier’ [a la extrema derecha]’Everyone sees that this is the last time that it is possible to express oneself in the language of the Republican Front, and that now something different must be done.’
Because yes: the Republican front has kept Le Pen out of power, and in this it has been effective again. But it has not prevented her from rising and rising in each election over these decades, until the day when, by her own strength, the cordon may break forever.
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