Plot to drop migrants on freezing Atlantic island at heart of battle for French Right

Yahoo

14-04-2025

Until two weeks ago, a freezing, sparsely populated French territory off Canada in the north Atlantic was unknown to most people in France, let alone the rest of the world.
Since then, the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon has unexpectedly been thrust into the spotlight not once, but twice.
First the windswept cluster of eight islands just off Newfoundland made headlines when Donald Trump inexplicably slapped 50 per cent trade tariffs on it. And then when the president of the conservative Republicans party in the National Assembly suggested 'dangerous' foreigners should be sent there if they refused to leave the country.
'The average yearly temperature is 5C, there are 146 days of rain and snow. I think that quite rapidly, it will make everyone think,' Laurent Wauquiez told CNews.
Mr Wauquiez's announcement sparked shock and anger, but in the current climate it's fitting. With the next presidential election in two years, the French Right is locked in a bitter leadership battle after struggling to unite behind someone capable of taking on the camps of pro-Europe centrist Emmanuel Macron and nationalist Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen.
The once mighty Republicans party, LR, is due to choose a new leader next month with the post seen as a springboard for a crack at the French presidency in 2027.
It has become a two-horse race between Bruno Retailleau, current interior minister, and Mr Wauquiez, who has lost ground to his popular rival in the polls.
LR, which has spawned several heads of state, is a shadow of its former self, reduced to just 39 MPs in the 577-seat National Assembly after Emmanuel Macron called snap elections last year.
By comparison, Marine Le Pen's National Rally has 143 seats, Macron's Ensemble Pour la République 94 and the hard-Left France Unbowed 71. Even the Socialists have 66.
The Republicans were further enfeebled when former boss Eric Ciotti jumped ship last year to join forces with the National Rally.
LR's leadership battle has come into even sharper focus since a court last week slapped an electoral ban on Ms Le Pen over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament, effectively knocking her out of the presidential race unless she is cleared in an appeal next year. She has pledged to fight on, failing which her party will launch plan B for Jordan Bardella, her 29-year-old dauphin who is also party leader.
Against this backdrop, rivals dismissed Mr Wauquiez's suggestion as Trump-style rhetoric.
Boris Vallaud, leader of the Socialists in parliament, said the prospect of 'Guantanamo-on-Sea' was as 'shameful' as it was 'stupid'. Even Ms Le Pen scoffed that 'the place of people under obligation to leave French territory is in their country, certainly not in a French territory'.
But others say they are missing the point. Mr Wauquiez is seeking to appeal to a small rump of 60,000-odd card-carrying LR party members who will decide the leadership race on May 17 and 18. And that includes appealing to their views on immigration, which has come to define the rhetoric of the Right and the demands of its voters.
'The LR base is more radical than the leadership,' said one of his aides.
Mr Retailleau has also veered Right in the final stretch, slamming 'red judges' in the wake of the Le Pen verdict and speaking out against women wearing headscarves in sport.
'The logic is that with Marine Le Pen no longer a candidate, there is a race on the Right to conquer legitimacy, unite everyone behind you and hope to win in 2027,' said Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, political communication specialist.
However, many Right-wingers are loath to vote for someone like Mr Retailleau who is 'minister in a government appointed by Emmanuel Macron and led by a centrist', said Prof Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the French hard-Right. He has not made good his threat to resign due to the risk of losing visibility, further muddying the waters.
But whoever wins the LR leadership race faces an uphill struggle keeping the French Right not just united, but also relevant, he added. Neither Mr Wauquiez nor Mr Retailleau would reach the presidential run-off, polls suggest.
As things stand, both Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella would comfortably reach round two of presidential elections in 2027 even if they would face a major challenge attracting enough votes to clinch the presidency. Their most likely current rival in the run-off would be Edouard Philippe, or failing that Gabriel Attal, both former Macron prime ministers.
According to Gilles Richard, emeritus professor at Rennes university and historian of the French Right, the Republicans are still paying for failing to resolve the party's 'untenable' stance between 'pro-European neo-liberalism and identity-based nationalism', which has turned it into a 'headless duck'.
'The proof is that most of the pro-European neo-liberals have already moved to the Macron camp while the nationalists have gone over to Mr Ciotti,' he said.
Moreover, support for the Le Pen camp has not faltered despite the embezzlement ruling and an underwhelming rally in her support in Paris last weekend in which she slammed a 'political decision' that 'flouted the rule of law and the state of democracy'.
'If they think that the ruling could lead to a collapse in voting intentions, they have not understood anything about the dynamics of the National [Rally] vote,' said Emeric Bréhier of the Jean-Jaurès foundation.
As for RN, it has its own problems uniting the Right beyond its core support base.
Last year, Mr Bardella published his memoir, Ce que je cherche (What I'm Looking For), in which he wrote: 'The idea of uniting working-class French people and part of the conservative bourgeoisie in a single movement – as Nicolas Sarkozy did in 2007 – is a good one.'
But as uncertainty over Ms Le Pen's political future remains, the party faces an uphill struggle wooing more 'upper middle-class, educated' voters it won over in the last legislative elections, many of whom were shocked by its virulent criticism of the 'system' and judiciary in the wake of the Le Pen ban, according to Luc Rouban, political scientist attached to the CNRS and Sciences Po.
RN could potentially join forces with Éric Zemmour, who launched his Reconquest party in 2021 and polled 2.4 million votes in the 2022 presidential election, 800,000 more than the Republicans.
However, enmity remains over Ms Le Pen's refusal to enter into a coalition with Reconquest in 2022 and support for Mr Zemmour has nosedived since anyway. He is hovering around the 3-5 per cent mark in presidential voter intentions should he run.
Prof Camus said: 'The idea of unifying the Right in France has been bandied about for 20 years. Nobody has managed it.'
The only consolation, added Prof Richard, is that 'the Left are even an even worse state'.
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