National Rally leader European Parliament candidate Jordan Bardella has pledged to limit the free movement of migrants across the EU’s open borders, ease EU pressure on Russia and call back on EU climate rules.
“We stand by the idea of rethinking the European model around the idea of nation. Macron’s Europe is a model of the past,” Bardella said at a public meeting in Paris on Sunday.
Macron’s pro-EU movement is meanwhile flailing, and chief candidate Valerie Hayer has struggled to make a mark. That troubles Macron as he tries to lead a Europe-wide effort to defend Ukraine and boost the EU’s own defense and industry.
More popular Prime Minister Gabriel Attal today joined Hayer at a rally, warning voters that Europe’s hard-fought post-war unity – and democracy itself – was under threat from rising authoritarianism. “Europe is mortal, because the war is knocking on the door when the bombs are dropped in Ukraine, about democracy, our values, and because we know that if Russia wins it will not stop there,” Attal said at a public meeting last week. He said that Europe knows “it cannot rely on the US forever and must protect itself … because the challenges are increasing, climate change, big technology, AI, and we can only face it together, the 27 of us” .
When EU voters elect members of the European Parliament, many make decisions based on national concerns – and in France, many expect to use their ballots to express frustration with Macron’s management of the economy, the agricultural sector, or security in a country set to host the Paris Olympics. high risk.
On the left, polls show a surprising resurgence for France’s Socialist Party behind its leader candidate, Raphael Glucksmann, who has promised more ambitious climate policies and protections for European businesses and workers.
Macron ousted France’s once-powerful Socialists and mainstream conservative Republicans when he came to power in 2017 by taking center stage. But frustration among left-wing voters with Macron’s strong security and immigration policies, and with the strong pro-Palestinian stance of the far-left French Unbowed party, has led some to return to traditional Socialists.
The president of Russia, the leaders of the Gulf and other oil powers can “stop the supply of gas or oil, but they cannot stop the wind from blowing in (the French Atlantic city) Saint-Nazaire and the sun from shining in Marseille. We will get our freedom back by completing the environmental transformation “, Glucksmann told his followers last week.
His fans include office workers like Sebastien Miret (34).
“We want a Europe that is more feminist, more socially conscious, more just, more environmentally friendly, and we will fight to the end to see these ideas win,” he said at a Socialist campaign event. He is tired of “the match between Macron and the right. We have seen it many times. It is time to move on”.
Still, it is Le Pen – runner-up to Macron in the last two presidential elections – who is expected to benefit the most from the French protest vote, even more than her party in the last EU elections in 2019.
In the northern French working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, 19-year-old first-time voter Theo Boulogne called on Le Pen to run for president again in 2027, while pensioner Gerard Criquelette, 76, praised her and Bardella, saying. , “Both listen to them.”
Le Pen, whose father and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has repeatedly been accused of racism and anti-Semitism, has not called for extreme measures like exiting the EU and the euro. Instead, they aim to reduce the EU’s power from within.
“Across Europe, national parties are not destroying the European Union, but building an alliance of European countries that can face the industrial, environmental, migration and technological challenges of the 21st century,” Le Pen told party followers. “In France and Europe, we won the war.”
