Latest news with #RassemblementNational
LeMonde
4 days ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
The French far right's Giorgia Meloni problem
Whether out of a sense of heritage or opportunism, Jordan Bardella has, in recent months, looked to Italy, the homeland of three of his grandparents, for inspiration. One name often comes up in the speeches of Marine Le Pen's "Plan B": Italian government leader Giorgia Meloni. Yet Meloni is not an ally of their far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party. Instead, Le Pen has always preferred to align herself with the Italian populist Matteo Salvini, whom she recently visited in Rome on May 11, and who, on June 9, will participate in an RN rally. Le Pen and Salvini are linked by a friendly loyalty and several fundamental principles: intense populism, an obsession with Islam, rejection of immigration, distrust of the European Union, and historically close ties to Russia. Bardella, on the other hand, is solely focused on Meloni's brand of national conservatism, with its economically liberal policies – even though he sits in the European Parliament with members of Salvini's Lega. This has raised eyebrows among some Le Pen loyalists: "Giorgia Meloni has shown results, and may be a respectable European model, but that's not our line. And, if there is an attempt to abandon the populist line, then that's dangerous," said one influential MP.
The National
6 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Why should the left be ashamed to be left?
Labour never promised transformation. They campaigned on stability, on fiscal discipline, on not scaring anyone. The fiscal rules were locked in. Public investment was already constrained. Immigration rhetoric hardened before the first vote was cast. Still, many voters – including some on the left – held on to the hope that the machinery of government might offer opportunities for ambition, or at least decency. But less than a year in, that hope is evaporating. Cabinet ministers are storming out of meetings. The Deputy Prime Minister is circulating an alternative budget memo proposing tax increases to avoid welfare cuts. A leadership contest is openly discussed. Not because something unexpected has happened – but because everything is happening exactly as expected. What's missing is not just policy. It's narrative. Starmer offers fiscal discipline, praises business, restricts immigration and maintains brutal Conservative-era policies like the two-child benefit cap – which denies support to third children in poor families. Only when Nigel Farage's Reform UK began criticising the policy did Labour begin murmuring about change. This isn't just caution. It's a failure to lead. Because what British voters want – like French voters in 2012 – is not just competence. It's transformation: an end to austerity, a belief that the state can be a force for good, a moral rebalancing after a decade of precarity. And here's the danger: when the left refuses to offer that, it opens the door to those who will. In France, that is, ever increasingly, the far-right Rassemblement National. In the UK, it may well be Farage. Reform UK are now talking about child poverty, restoring fuel payments, helping working-class families – themes Labour once owned and have since abandoned. Farage is no ally of the poor. But Labour's silence gives him room to pretend. This keeps happening because too many centre-left parties have internalised the idea that they must apologise for their values. That being 'electable' means abandoning redistribution, avoiding the word tax and endlessly chasing the political centre. But you can't technocrat your way out of political collapse. You can't reconnect with working-class voters if you treat them as an embarrassment. I've seen this before. I'm a French journalist now based in Scotland. In 2012, I was a member of the French Socialist Party. I campaigned enthusiastically in the primaries for Martine Aubry (below) – one of the last political leaders I truly admired. For readers unfamiliar with her, Aubry was the architect of France's 35-hour work week and a principled social democrat who placed care, justice and shared dignity at the heart of her politics. She stood for a kind of feminism rooted in working-class realities and state responsibility. But Aubry lost the primary. François Hollande – a bland centrist and consensus-builder – won. And what followed was one of the most disillusioning experiences of my political life: a slow implosion of the French left, driven by a man who, like Starmer, confused caution with courage and management with leadership. Hollande's 2012 victory was heavy with hope but light on slogan – Le changement, c'est maintenant ('Change is now') – was designed to be vague. And the result itself was far from a plebiscite. He won with a modest margin and limited enthusiasm, mostly because people wanted rid of Nicolas Sarkozy, not because they believed in his vision. Starmer's path to power followed the same logic. Labour's share of the vote was historically low. The scale of the victory masked the thinness of the mandate – a rejection of 14 years of Conservative rule, not an endorsement of a bold new programme. The moment Hollande took office, something broke. He tried to reassure the markets, surrounded himself with economic technocrats and embraced 'fiscal responsibility'. Early tax increases on the wealthy were reversed. Corporate tax breaks expanded. Labour protections were weakened. Investment in social transformation stalled. READ MORE: Scottish director's film set during Highland Clearances takes Cannes by storm Then came the real rupture: a shift to the right on identity and security. In the wake of terrorist attacks, Hollande declared a state of emergency, expanded police powers and even proposed revoking French citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorism – a deeply symbolic, reactionary move that split his own party and alienated much of the electorate. By 2017, Hollande was so unpopular he didn't even run for re-election. The Socialist Party collapsed. Emmanuel Macron took power. And the far-right surged into the space the left had abandoned. Meanwhile, in Scotland, the story has played out differently – but not necessarily more hopefully. Labour's collapse created space not for a bold progressive force, but for the SNP: a party that, while rhetorically centre-left, has governed in a cautious, often managerial style. It has benefited from Westminster's failures more than from its own radicalism. Still, within a bleak UK-wide landscape, the Scottish Child Payment stands out as one of the few serious policy efforts to reduce child poverty. It recognises, at least, that the state should do something. While Labour drift, something interesting is happening back in France. In the coming days, the Socialist Party – the traditional party of the centre-left, once dominant and now largely eclipsed – will hold their national congress. For the first time in years, there is a real debate about what the left is for. How do we rebuild a credible alternative in time to prevent the far right from winning the presidency in 2027? Among the candidates vying to lead the party is Boris Vallaud, a relatively little-known figure outside France but a serious and thoughtful one. A former Élysée adviser under Hollande and now an MP in the Landes, Vallaud has built a reputation as a consistent, principled voice on the democratic left. Unlike many in his generation, he never embraced Macronism or the hollow centre. His campaign has resonated around a striking formulation: 'Socialism is orphaned of a strong idea.' His answer is démarchandisation – the reclaiming of life from the logic of the market. It's a concept that avoids the nostalgia of full nationalisation and the clichés of 'big state' politics. Instead, it questions the market's expansion into every domain of life – from early years care to education, housing, even human relationships. It asks what parts of society should be protected from profit imperatives, and how the state, civil society and communities might reclaim them. Vallaud is not alone: across the French left, from François Ruffin to Clémentine Autain, a common diagnosis is emerging – that the unchecked commodification of everything fuels not only inequality, but despair, loneliness and, eventually, the far right. In this sense, démarchandisation isn't just a policy tool. It's a way to reconnect socialism with meaning, power and emotion – and to name the unease so many people feel in a world where even water, old age and education are for sale. That kind of language – of meaning, purpose, direction – is strikingly absent from British a time when so much of the debate here has been reduced to numbers, caps, thresholds and reviews, it's worth noting when someone tries to articulate a broader horizon. READ MORE: I followed the SNP campaign trail in Hamilton – here's what I found out Because what I learned from campaigning with Aubry – and what I still believe — is that the left is strongest when it speaks from a place of care. Not sentimentality, but care as structure: interdependence, dignity, shared wealth. The 35-hour week was never just about hours. It was about balance, collective life, and rejecting the idea that growth is all that matters. Aubry didn't just manage. She inspired. Hollande didn't. And Starmer isn't. When the left retreats from these principles, it becomes cold. When it retreats from redistribution, it becomes irrelevant. When it copies the right, it legitimises its ideas. That's what Hollande did. And now Starmer is walking straight down the same path. In 2017, the French Socialist Party collapsed into irrelevance. The lesson wasn't that the left is doomed. It was that a left that forgets what it's for will not survive. Starmer should take note. Otherwise, like Hollande, he will be remembered not just for failing to deliver change – but for extinguishing the hope that change was still possible. As for whether démarchandisation could be that long-lost strong idea – well, that's for another column.
LeMonde
22-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
French election authorities scrutinize Jordan Bardella's 2024 European campaign funding
A few lines in an official document could have significant consequences for Jordan Bardella, the president of the Rassemblement National party (RN, far right) and a potential candidate for the French presidential election in 2027, should his mentor Marine Le Pen be unable to run. The leader of the far right is under scrutiny by the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing for a series of loans taken out during his campaign for the European elections in June 2024, according to public documents analyzed by Le Monde. The RN has accumulated a number of cases involving the circumvention of political financing rules over the past 15 years. New cases continue to emerge, despite the setbacks in court. In March, Le Pen and several party officials were convicted in the case of the party's fake European parliamentary assistant jobs. In 2023, the RN was also fined for inflating costs for campaign materials and improperly using public funds to cover the expenses in the 2012 parliamentary elections. This time, the Commission is focusing on loans Bardella secured from individuals, totaling nearly €4.5 million. The authority overseeing the integrity of elections in France has been closely monitoring the issue since it identified irregularities in the accounts of other RN candidates in several elections between 2021 and 2023. However, it cannot independently verify the true origin of the funds officially lent to candidates, as reiterated by its president, Jean-Philippe Vachia.
LeMonde
21-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
French left plans to create a 'progressive international' to fight against the far right
How can the left resist the far right's rise, symbolized by Donald Trump's return to power in the United States, Javier Milei's rise in Argentina, Geert Wilders' breakthrough victory in the Netherlands and the surge of the Rassemblement National (RN) in France? To answer this thorny question, the French left aims to rebuild a "progressive, humanist and environmentalist international," in the spirit of the major left-wing networks of decades past, the last of which was seen in the alter-globalization movement of the 2000s. Hoping to rekindle that era, a network of French elected officials – MPs, MEPs, mayors and senators – is about to embark on a tour, through an initiative called La Digue ("The Dam"), to meet with political leaders, intellectuals and civil society figures. Their aim: to ask them "how they resist" and to build connections, ahead of the possibility of the RN coming to power. "Nothing seems to stop the momentum of identitarian neofascists. The forces opposite us are allied and powerful. They sustain the narratives they instill against critical thinking, science and everything that makes us democrats," said, on Tuesday, May 20, left-wing independent MP Pouria Amirshahi (formerly a Socialist, who now sits with the Greens in the Assemblée), who spearheaded the initiative and had once taken part in the alter-globalization movement.
Spectator
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Jordan Bardella's moment has arrived
It is time to take seriously the possibility that the next president of France will be Jordan Bardella. His star power was persuasively demonstrated at Thursday's May Day rally of the Rassemblement National (RN) in Narbonne, the heartland of the French right. It was part political rally, part disco. The demographic was startling. The party stalwarts, aging boomers who have been voting for Le Pens for forty years, were heavily outnumbered by young people, dancing in front of the stage, waving tricolours. Marine Le Pen, 56, spoke first and was rapturously applauded by her party faithful. But her delivery was flat. She seemed exhausted. She is resilient, having run for president three times already, but she has lost every time. While she insists that she is still in the game, she may have hit the buffers. Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old president of the RN, followed.
