PARIS (AP) – Leader of the French extreme right Marine Le Pen he is not on the ballot this weekend European Parliament electionsbut it is likely to emerge as one of its biggest winners.
Polls expect his National Rally party to be the top vote-getter in France, overtaking President Emmanuel Macron's moderate pro-business party. And throughout Europe, the nationalist and anti-immigration ideas Le Pen has long argued that they are gaining ground.
The June 6-9 elections in the EU's 27 countries will shift the composition of the European Parliament and policy-making in the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, likely further to the right and far right. And that could increase Le Pen's chances of winning the French presidency in 2027, one long time dream.
The main candidate of the National Congress for the European Parliament Jordan Bardella lives up to promises to limit the free movement of migrants within the EU's open borders, ease EU pressure on Russia and repeal EU climate rules.
“We defend the idea of rethinking the European model around the idea of nations. Macron's Europe is a model of the past,” Bardella told a rally in Paris on Sunday.
Macron's pro-EU movement Meanwhile, it's in turmoil, and its leading contender Valerie Hayer has struggled to make a mark. This is worrying for Macron as he tries to lead efforts across Europe defend Ukraine and boost defenses and the EU's own industry.
The most popular prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is now joining Hayer at the rallies, warning voters that Europe's hard-fought post-war unity – and democracy itself – is under threat from the rise of authoritarianism.
“Europe is deadly, because war is knocking on our door while bombs are being dropped on Ukraine, democracy, our values, and because we know that if Russia wins, it will not stop here,” Attal said at a rally last week past .
He said that Europe knows “it cannot rely on the United States forever and needs to protect itself … because the challenges are multiplying, climate change, big technologies, artificial intelligence, and we can only face them together, the 27”.
While EU voters elect members of the European Parliament, many make decisions based on national concerns, and in France many are expected to use their ballots to express their frustration with Macron's handling of the economy . the agricultural sectoror security in a country about to host the High risk Paris Olympics.
On the left, polls show a surprising resurgence for France's Socialist Party behind its front-runner, Raphael Glucksmann, who promises more ambitious climate policy and protections for European businesses and workers.
Macron pushed aside France's once-powerful Socialists and mainstream conservative Republicans when he swept to power in 2017 striking a middle ground. But frustration among left-wing voters with Macron's toughening of security and immigration policies, and with the staunch pro-Palestinian stance of the influential far-left party France Unbowed, has pushed some back to the Socialists traditional
The president of Russia, the leaders of the Gulf and other oil powers can “cut off the supply of gas or oil, but they cannot prevent the wind from blowing in (the French Atlantic city) Saint-Nazaire and the sun from shining in Marseille. We will win our freedom by completing the environmental transformation,” Glucksmann told supporters last week.
Among his followers are office workers like 34-year-old Sébastien Miret.
“We want a more feminist, more socially conscious, fairer and more ecological Europe, and we will fight to the end for these ideas to win,” he said at a socialist campaign event. He is tired of the match between Macron and the extreme right. We've seen it too many times. It's time to move on.”
Still, it is Le Pen — Macron's runner-up in the last two presidential elections — who is expected to benefit most from France's protest vote, even more so than her party in the last EU election in 2019.
In the northern French working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, 19-year-old first-time voter Theo Boulogne urged Le Pen to run for president again in 2027, while 76-year-old retiree Gerard Criquelette praise her and Bardella, saying, “Both listen to people.”
Le Pen, whose father and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen was repeatedly condemned for racism and anti-Semitism, no longer calls for extreme measures such as leaving the EU and the euro. Instead, it aims to weaken the EU's powers from within.
“Across Europe, national parties are rising not to destroy the European Union, but to build a European alliance of nations capable of meeting the industrial, environmental, migration and technological challenges of the 21st century,” Le Pen told supporters of the party “Across France and Europe, we are winning the battle.”
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Contributed by Oleg Cetinic and Alex Turnbull in Paris and Philippe Marion in Henin-Beaumont.
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Follow AP coverage of the global election at: https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections/
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