Marine Le Pen is not far-Right National Rally's supporters eschew extremism

Is this the week that Europe’s much-anticipated far-Right wave finally crashes down upon us? As the results of France’s first-round vote trickled through yesterday, almost every media outlet — from the BBC to The New York Times — carried stories of Marine Le Pen’s “far-Right” victory. Meanwhile, just over the border in Belgium, came warnings of Viktor Orbán’s plan to form a new “far-Right” pact in the European parliament. Throw in the AfD’s “far-Right” party congress on Saturday, and it’s been a busy few days for the movement.

Yet these warnings have become ritualistic and devoid of analysis. For in truth, there is little “far-Right” about many of these movements. They are Eurosceptic, but not EuroExiters. They are hostile to mass immigration (which government is now not?), but recognise the large decline in birth rates means they’re stuck with large-scale immigration. They are suspicious of the LGBTQ+ movement, but largely accepting of homosexuality. Their aims, from housing to the economy, are mostly hard to attain, but if lawfully pursued, none is a threat to democratic government.

Why do millions follow these parties? Waiting for speeches from Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at a National Rally (RN) gathering in Marseille earlier this year, I asked a couple, M. and Mme Bodineau, that question. They were middle-aged, cheerful and happy to talk. “It is,” said M Bodineau, “because she speaks the truth. She speaks for us.” “I admire her,” added Madame Bodineau. “She is very intelligent.” I asked if they had thought of voting for Eric Zemmour, the former journalist who has placed himself to the Right of Le Pen. Madame Bodineau made a face of rejection: “Non, non, c’est un extremiste!”

This is a common feature for many of the established parties: their supporters eschew what they regard as extremists — anyone openly, or suspected as, racist, antisemitic, potentially violent — and support parties which are strongly against illegal immigration and critical of extreme liberals. They do not, in the mainstream, reject all immigration: they wish it to be controlled.

Thus, in France, the large majority favours the RN over Zemmour’s Reconquête!. In Sweden, moreover, the Alternative for Sweden group, a split from the “far-Right” Sweden Democrats (SDs), finds minimal support for its proposals to leave the EU and end support for Ukraine — both of which the SDs, part of a governing coalition of the centre-right, have rejected.

None of this to say that there isn’t a small number of genuinely far-Right parties in Europe at present. Chief among them, the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) was recently expelled from the EU parliament’s Identity and Democracy (ID) group after Maximilian Krah, its former leader in the European parliament, suggested that all members of SS were not necessarily bad people. Last week in response, the AfD executive decided to form a new European parliamentary group. Several of its possible partners are well to the Right: antisemitism, for example, is a strong theme in both Hungary’s Our Homeland and Poland’s Konfederacja. Nearly all are strongly in favour of an immediate exit from the EU, and have close ties with Russia. Typically winning between 4-7% of the vote, these really are far-Right parties masquerading as populist.

Compared with them, the rhetoric used to describe RN’s first-round victory seems overblown. Le Pen has been devoted, over the years and more energetically over the past few months, to scrubbing herself and her party clean from the stains of her father, the impassioned antisemite Jean-Marie Le Pen. She and Bardella now propose to be a moderate couple in all things, with Zemmour as a handy extremist from whom they visibly recoil. Bardella, in particular, who may become France’s next Prime Minister, has promised that his potential government would lead “realistic” economic policies and “not weaken” France’s voice abroad. It’s hardly the language of a radical intending to shake the foundations of French politics.

Even on an issue which divides the Right across Europe, the RN can be seen playing the moderate card. Once a friend — and beneficiary — of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Le Pen used a speech in the National Assembly in March to state: “It is the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people that will lead to Russia’s defeat.” If she follows the logic of her discourse, she will stand with Meloni and the Sweden Democrats’ leader Jimmy Akesson, making her the third and most powerful of the New Right — a far better term than “far-Right” — to line up with Nato, the US and (most of) the Western democracies.

None of which screams “far-Right” takeover. These politicians are not like Donald Trump, who doubles down on promises to imprison enemies, purge the civil service and challenge the constitution. With the exception of the AfD, the European New Right parade their relative moderation. Yes, like mainstream ideologies — Socialism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, Christian Democracy — they differ in their standings with voters from state to state. But they also have a restraining ideology of their own: Democratic Nationalism. They place faith in the choices — and, implicitly, the moderation — of the people, and assume the nation remains the most natural unit both for politics.

Yes, these parties are conservative in some things — such as with strengthening the family — but they are not in others. Were he to become prime minister, for instance, Bardella plans to increase working-class living standards by lowering costs and cutting taxes for companies who raise workers’ wages; it is closer to socialism than conservatism. The extremists, it seems, are elsewhere.