EU breathes a sigh of relief after curbing far-right in France | International

The French bulwark has stopped the wave of the far right and the EU has breathed a sigh of relief. In Brussels and in many capitals they watched this Sunday’s decisive second round of legislative elections in France with concern and a certain disappointment. But the worst scenario for the European project, a majority for Marine Le Pen’s far-right and eurosceptic National Regrouping (RN) in the Union’s second largest economy, a country essential for the bloc’s advancement…

The French bulwark has stopped the wave of the far right and the European Union has breathed a sigh of relief. In Brussels and in many capitals they watched the decisive second round of the legislative elections in France this Sunday with concern and a certain disappointment. But the worst scenario for the European project, a majority of Marine Le Pen’s far-right and eurosceptic National Regrouping (RN) in the Union’s second economy, a country essential for the bloc’s progress, has not happened, according to First Data.

“In Paris, jubilation; in Moscow, despair; in Kiev, relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on social media shortly after the first polls were released. The conservative politician from the European People’s Party family, together with the Liberal and Social Alliance, also managed to contain and defeat the far right in Poland at the end of last year. Tusk has thus celebrated the containment of the extremists of Le Pen, whose party has had ties with Russia. Regarding the good results of the left – integrated in the New Popular Front, there are many in the EPP who compare it to the extreme right of the RN and the extreme left of La Francia Insumissa (LFI, the leader of that bloc), although their approach to democracy and social rights is radically different. Former Italian Prime Minister and European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, a Social Democrat, launched on social media, “Long live the Republic.”

However, the anxiety is not completely over: the elections, with record mobilization, leave a fragmented parliament in France, with the left united in the New Popular Front as the first force. It is followed by President Emmanuel Macron’s Liberal Party and the RN Ultras in third place. Shortly after the results were known, the prime minister, the centrist Gabriel Attal, announced that he would submit his resignation.

“We will have to see how the majority is formed and what kind of governability we see,” says a veteran diplomat who spoke freely on condition of anonymity. Furthermore, no one is aware that millions of French people have chosen the extreme right of the RN, an anti-immigration, xenophobic party with a Europhobic position and which will most likely join the European Patriots, the new political family – with a congenial nature, extremist and affinities with the Kremlin – promoted by Viktor Orbán in the European Parliament. From there, they will try to promote an agenda that will help Le Pen’s party advance between now and the presidential elections in 2027.

”The curveball has been dodged, but we’ll see next time,” says a senior Community source. Still, calm appears to have arrived in Brussels, where President Macron’s potential cohabitation with the far-right prime minister was viewed with concern, a situation that has seen Le Pen’s dolphin, Jordan Bardella, an MEP who has barely seen a hair and has never been to neither the Community capital, nor Strasbourg, the headquarters of the European Parliament.

Iratxe García Pérez, president of the European Parliamentary Group of Socialists and Democrats, declared on social media, “Tonight, my French friends and comrades demonstrate that it is possible to stop the extreme right by uniting the left.” He added, “The results are clear: by placing the New Popular Front at the head of the seats in the National Assembly, the French people united to save the Republic from the dangers that awaited it.” Liberal Valérie Hair, president of the Renew group in the European Parliament, said, “This afternoon opens a new page in our parliamentary history.” “A new page where we have to work in a different way, where our convergences have to overcome our differences to offer a way forward for the country,” said Hair, who cited as an example the alliances between different groups and political families in the country being created in the European Parliament.