The French Republic has never had a president belonging to the extreme right. Is that bound to change?
Over the past few decades, political parties on the far-right have been gaining traction in Europe. Some countries, such as Switzerland, have been governed under such ideologies for over fifty years, but others have shifted more recently.
In Hungary, for instance, the Fidesz (Federation of Young Democrats) party was initially formed in 1988. Though the party was founded upon anti-socialist sentiments, specifically towards the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, it has adopted a far-right ideology over the years. The Fidesz came to power first in 1998 but solidified their control more recently in 2010. In both the 1998 and 2010 elections, Fidesz won through fair parliamentary elections, earning the 2/3 majority necessary in the National Assembly to make significant legislative changes in the latter. Though the party would not be considered extremely right by modern standards, the Fidesz have been leaning more towards the right since 2010 and will likely continue to do so.
The Brothers in Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) are another dominant right-leaning group in Europe. Unlike the Fidesz, the Brothers have deliberately expressed their far-right agenda. The group was founded a bit over a decade ago in 2012, but as of the election of 2022 are now the largest political party in the entire country. The current prime minister of the nation, Giorgia Meloni, is a member of the Brothers in Italy and has been enforcing the most right-wing policies and government system of any executive since World War II. The ideology of the Brothers is a manifestation of toxic nationalism, a notorious indicator of extreme-right agendas.
There are other European countries that, although are not currently under a right-wing government, are witnessing them become increasingly more popular. Left-wing or centrist candidates are no longer winning landslide victories, and populations are more divided than ever before.
One of the most relevant examples of this? France.
The French democracy has a complicated history, dating back to the French Revolution of the late 18th century. For an entire decade, the Third Estate (common people) of France led an organized overthrow of the French monarchy, fighting for more government representation and a balanced distribution of power amongst social classes. Between the Tennis Court Oath and the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety, landmark acts of democratic rebellion, this group made efforts to bring a more democratic style of government to their country. This eventually culminated in the Constitution of 1791, which officially marked the end of aristocratic rule in France and the beginning of a constitutional monarchy. By 1792, the French First Republic was born.
However, this success was short-lived; when the moderate era of the revolution ended, and many feared that elites would try to restore the monarchy, the infamous Reign of Terror was born.
Considered the radical phase of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror existed from 1793 to 1794 with Maximilien Robespierre at its head. During this brief period, many French citizens were executed after being suspected of disloyalty to the new government. In the end, Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety assumed the role of the aristocracy that they initially sought to replace, voiding the entire purpose of the Revolution. This era also inadvertently exposed the many vulnerabilities of the new French government, paving the way for Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat in 1799.
By the time the Napoleonic Wars had concluded and Napoleon himself was exiled, France was free to create a true democracy for itself. In 1870, the Third Republic of France was established, creating a system of parliamentary supremacy with an executive president, cabinet, and parliament. Accompanying this change was a multitude of new laws and reforms to protect the country from future coup d’etats and undemocratic overthrows. Over the course of the past few centuries, this system has been reformed twice–into the Fourth Republic and then the Fifth–but the values of democracy have nevertheless remained central to the French government.
Since creating this system, the French government has not seen a significant amount of turmoil (with the exception of the collapse of the Third Republic in 1940 due to Nazi invasion). The country has consistently elected executive presidents since 1871, the first being Adolphe Thiers and the most recent (25th) being Emmanuel Macron (part of the liberal-centrist Renaissance party). In between these two figures, there has never been an extreme right party candidate who has won an election. France has historically elected centrists–often right or left-leaning–to be its president.
However, recent decades have revealed that France is leaning away from these tendencies.
In the late 1900’s, Jean-Marie Le Pen invigorated the extreme right movement by founding the National Front party. Some of the primary beliefs of this movement are the restriction of immigration, maintenance of law and order, and anti-globalization. Le Pen is often regarded as having held even more extreme convictions than what is typical of the far-right, having openly endorsed Nazism and fascism. Though his run for president in 1974 was largely unsuccessful—only securing 0.74% of the popular vote— he set a precedent for the growing far-right movement. By 2002, he had bumped up his vote share to 17.8%.
In recent years, we see Le Pen’s legacy most carried on through his daughter, Marine Le Pen. As the daughter of a very politically involved father, Marine became invested in politics at a young age. By the time she was 13, she would accompany her father to meetings where far-right ideals were discussed and promoted. However, she has stepped away from many of her father’s beliefs in her own career and successfully distinguished herself from many aspects of the traditional far-right ideology, often being perceived as a more democratic version of her father. Some examples of the ideals she abandoned are opposition to same-sex marriage, support of the death penalty, and opposition to abortion. The result of these reforms to the far-right has made Marine Le Pen seem more nationalistic.

While Marine has attempted to detach the National Front party– rebranded as the National Rally in 2018–and their antisemitic and racist beliefs, she is an avid supporter of anti-immigration laws in France.
As is true for many nations worldwide, immigration is a hot topic in France and has become a prominent issue during elections. Macron is generally considered to be friendly towards immigration, welcoming foreigners as long as they pursue the correct legal procedures. However, both the extreme left and extreme right have shown to be very negative towards these policies in the past few election cycles.
For example, in the most recent French election (2022), the primary candidates were Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Le Pen endorsed the typical far-right viewpoint, emphasizing the need for the deportation of illegal immigrants and a severe reduction of immigration to France as a whole. In 2011, she called for the cancellation of certain pro-immigration programs such as the AME (aide médicale d’Ėtat), which provides free care to illegal immigrants. Similarly, Zemmour’s far-right party, la Reconquête, also argued that immigrants were “replacing” French Europeans in the country. He specifically targeted Muslims and Arabs in his campaign, referring to them as “undesirables” and calling for their deportation. Though Mélenchon represented the far-left in this election, his immigration policies were not much different from those of Le Pen or Zemmour. He might not have emphasized the need for immediate removal or significant restrictions, but he also did not endorse immigration or any major reforms of the immigration system (like is typically expected from the left).
The last election cycle made it clear that the state of immigration in France is extremely fragile. Seeing that the popular vote was split rather closely in the final round of the election (Macron: 58.55%, Le Pen: 41.45%), it is conceivable that the population is just as divided as the government. At this point, immigration is one of the most influential factors in voting choice.
Even more important to take note of from the last election is the extent of Marine Le Pen’s success. Before this, no far-right candidate had even been close to securing victory (the only comparable situation being Jean-Marie Le Pen’s 17.8% in 2002). What it seems like now, however, is that France is at a serious risk of joining the extreme-right trend in Europe.
This isn’t concerning for immigrants alone—Marine Le Pen has endorsed many other significant moves for change. In terms of the economy, Le Pen has advocated for anti-globalization and general economic nationalism. She has called for France to exit the Eurozone (European states who use the Euro), openly speaking against the expansion of the European Union to Turkey and Ukraine, but also planned to stage a referendum on exiting the European Union. She said in a 2015 interview “Just call me Madame Frexit.” It is important to note that she has abandoned many of these ideas over time, including “Frexit” and her plans to exit the Eurozone.
Combined with her wishes to completely reform foreign policy by fostering a positive relationship with Russia, a Le Pen victory would completely alter France’s position on the world stage. It would mean disorder and instability not just for immigrants, but for all.

And yet, the polls don’t lie. Since 2022, many French citizens have been contemplating whether Le Pen will be able to win in 2027. She was on a consistent upward trajectory in popular vote percentage, gaining almost 10% of voters just from 2017 to 2022 (going from 33.90% in 2017 to 41.45% in 2022). Many people were worried that this trend would persist and Marine Le Pen would win in 2027, especially without Macron to run against her (as he is currently in his second term). I, too, who spent countless nights discussing the fate of France with my French immigrant parents, was concerned that a centrist candidate would not be elected.
It was under the influence of these emotions that I decided to write this very article and look deeper into the history of the French extreme right. I expected to find radical policies and goals, maybe even a scandal or two.
What I did not expect to find was breaking news that Marine Le Pen would not be able to run in 2027.
As it turns out, Marine Le Pen was recently convicted of embezzlement and the French court banned her from running for president. Le Pen was allegedly involved in a large scandal involving the improper use of 4.3 million dollars belonging to the European Parliament. After being charged with using the institution’s funds to advance her own political party, Le Pen was not only removed from the presidential race but arrested and placed on house arrest.
Despite being identified as an extremely likely victor in the 2027 election for the past three years, the possibility of her victory vanished.
The removal of Le Pen from the 2027 election has been met with rage from a significant portion of the country. As Le Pen is trying to appeal the decision– a process that could take years– millions of her supporters are expressing their outrage. Le Pen was a popular candidate not just for her nationalism and proposed policies, but also because she was a true French woman; the first name “Marine” is traditionally French, the last name “Le Pen” is common in the Breton region, and she herself has the aire of being born-and-raised in France.
People are drawn to Marine Le Pen because they feel she represents them on a fundamental level, a sentiment that is not so foreign.
In the mid-1900’s, politicians with this allure began to take over Europe–Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, just to name a few. These fascists gathered supporters by appealing to nationalism and promoting some form of the pure race theory. Hitler’s idea of a “pure aryan race” is the most known example of this, but Mussolini also strove to achieve this in Italy (though to a notably lesser degree). Franco’s ideology was slightly different, emphasizing Christianity and a shared cultural identity more than race, but it was the same idea: some people are part of a nation, others are not.
When comparing Le Pen to these figures, it’s important to have some reservations. Le Pen’s manifestos do not advocate for totalitarianism or violent suppression, key features of traditional fascist government systems. She has instead committed to a policy of dédiabolisation (de-demonization) whereby she rids the far-right of overtly fascist people and ideas. One key example of this was when she expelled her own father from the party, who was a proponent of racism, antisemitism, and various other prejudices. Though there are parallels between her and some of the most extreme right-wing candidates of modern Europe, she does not present the same genocidal risk that they did at the time.
Le Pen is better described as a bonapartist, a uniquely French ideology that is defined by a desire to restore the French empire as it was under Napoleon. This system was not a fascist one. Rather, Napoleon led a centralized government that valued equality and civil liberties. Inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution, he installed a powerful bureaucracy that helped pass numerous reforms in education, public service, and infrastructure. As a bonapartist, Le Pen expressed a wish to lead on the plebiscitary principle, as made evident by her plan to host multiple referendums.
Ultimately, however, Le Pen is no longer eligible for the French presidency. Currently in her place is a new candidate by the name of Jordan Bardella, the 29 year old president of the National Rally. Surprisingly, Bardella has been doing just as well in the polls as Le Pen was just a few months ago. As of May of this year, Bardella is ranked first with around 31% of the vote, not all that less than Le Pen’s 36% in March (before her conviction). This is not surprising given that Bardella is generally seen as less extreme than Le Pen–he is committed to the same policies of restricted immigration, the termination of birthright citizenship, and nationalism, but he also supports more liberal economic policies and a more critical view of Russia. The discrepancy in his and Le Pen’s voter percentage is most likely due to his lack of seniority in the party.

Marine Le Pen’s rise and downfall begs many questions. How likely is France to fall to the extreme right? What would a victory for the extreme right in France mean for the rest of Europe?
Is this part of a larger domino effect?
What I think is most interesting about this is the stark similarities between Le Pen and Donald Trump’s campaigns, and yet the very stark differences between where they currently stand as politicians. Le Pen and Trump have an extremely similar set of principles, largely because Le Pen took a lot of inspiration from Trump’s 2017 presidential term. I’m sure that any American who has read this article can recognize the parallels between the policies Le Pen wanted to pass and those Trump is currently passing, most notably the anti-immigration reforms.
In addition to their precise policies, Le Pen and Trump also have common ground in terms of their mentalities: they have appealed to their respective nations by claiming to be the voice of the common people.
This is part of a greater phenomenon where far-right politicians are adopting more populist principles, continuously adapting to the “general will” to gain voters. Le Pen, who has repeatedly redefined her campaign (especially in regards to “Frexit”), represents a perfect example of this. Trump has also toned down or emphasized certain parts of his presidential plan over the years. Immigration is the obvious example of this, where Trump has severely cracked down on this system compared to his first term.
Both Le Pen and Trump are also convicted felons, and yet, only one of the two has been able to run for president. The implications of this are conflicting, and speak to a greater issue than simply the perpetuation of the far-right. Nevertheless, it pushes Americans to consider whether we are in the position to be criticizing Europe.
The far-right revolution is undoubtedly becoming more global by the day. Here in America, the situations in Hungary, Italy, and France seem foreign, but the truth is, conservatism is on the rise everywhere in the Western world.
Here in America, the situations in Hungary, Italy, and France seem foreign, but the truth is, conservatism is on the rise everywhere in the Western world.