EU braces for the nightmare scenario- a eurosceptic France

Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella (front) at a rally during the party's EU elections campaign. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

On the night her party swept to a crushing victory in European elections and France’s president triggered a political earthquake by dissolving parliament, Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the National Rally (RN), could not have been much clearer.

“Tonight’s message – including the dissolution – is also addressed to the leaders in Brussels,” she said. “This great victory for patriotic movements is in alignment with the direction of history … We are ready to take power if the people so wish.”

Leaving the EU and the eurozone no longer feature on RN’s electoral manifestos; the last time they did, in the 2017 presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron handed the far-right party a defeat as humiliating as the one it dealt him this month.

But seven years on, the near-certain victory of Le Pen’s RN in snap general elections could prove nearly as damaging for the EU, posing existential questions about France’s role and severely constraining the bloc’s capacity to get things done.

In Europe, “our arrival in office will mark France’s return to the European stage – to defend its interests”, Jordan Bardella, the party’s president, and likely prime minister if it wins an absolute majority, promised journalists this week.

RN stood ready, he said, to negotiate “exceptions” to a number of EU rules for France – a founder member of the EU, its second-biggest economy, and half of the vital (if currently stalled) Franco-German engine that has powered it since its creation.

All but one poll has so far suggested the far-right party is unlikely to win an outright majority of at least 289 deputies in the two-round election on 30 June and 7 July, and Bardella has said he would only be prepared to form a government if it does.

But RN is on course for between 32% and 35% of the vote, which – although translating vote share into seat numbers is a hazardous business – would almost certainly make it by far the largest force in the national assembly.

With the left-green New Popular Front (NFP) on 28% to 30% and Macron’s centrist coalition reduced to about 20%, the election’s most likely outcome is a parliament even more bitterly fractured and polarised than the outgoing one.

Understandably, Macron’s decision to call snap elections has caused dismay and alarm in other EU capitals, who see the move either as a mistake, a throw of the dice, or both.

“It is a major gamble,” one EU diplomat said, warning that a hung parliament could slow down decision-making in a bloc already struggling to find accord on policies from nature protection to future EU spending.

A big RN win is also seen as potentially boosting the chances of other far-right, Eurosceptic parties in regional elections in east Germany and national elections in Austria later this year.

With a hung parliament, France “faces the prospect of a lengthy period without a fully functioning government – with incalculable consequences for its ability to engage constructively in the EU”, said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group consultancy.

French presidents’ extensive powers depend largely on their parliamentary backing. “The result would be a complete absence of any European decision-making,” said François Heisbourg, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank.

European leaders’ summits would also be faced with a critically weakened French president who, for all his undoubted faults, has been one of the very few among them to consistently push for a stronger, more united and more “sovereign” EU.

Since sweeping to power on a pro-EU campaign, Macron has been a major source of ideas for the EU, such as his proposal for a European Political Community or joint borrowing to pull Europe’s economies out of the pandemic-induced slump.

Even without an absolute majority, the far right in the French parliament will seek to promote its European vision: a “Europe of nations”, with more power returned to the capitals. RN has said it wants to withhold part of France’s financial contribution to the EU.

It aims to legislate a “national preference” for French businesses and agriculture, in breach of the rules of the European single market, review EU free trade agreements that do not “respect” France, and prevent any further enlargement of the EU.

The party’s anti-EU agenda could imperil tentative hopes for more common EU borrowing to fund defence or the green transition. “The EU can, though with difficulty, swallow a somewhat Eurosceptic Italy,” said Marco Buti, a former director general for economic and financial affairs at the European Commission.

“I don’t think it can swallow a Eurosceptic France,” Buti said. The RN could adopt “a sort of tactical, prudent attitude” in the short term, “but not in the medium term: their values are too antagonistic to those at the basis of the European project”.

Buti, now a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said RN’s opposition to EU decision-making would make it “very hard” to complete banking or capital markets union, “let alone move to a common defence policy”.

The political ramifications of France turning away from the European project “are going to be objectively much more important than … other countries”, he said.

The party has already rowed back on some policies likely to bring it into immediate conflict with Brussels, including a plan to challenge the European electricity market, and Bardella sought this week to reassure France’s European partners.

Any government he headed would pursue “realistic, credible” economic policies and not weaken the country’s voice abroad, the 28-year-old said. But he also promised to “defend purchasing power” by cutting taxes on fuel, gas and electricity.

Along with promised tax cuts for companies if they increase the salaries of low- and medium-paid employees and a pledge to roll back the retirement age to 60, RN’s spending plans would set it on a collision course with the European Commission.

The bloc’s executive last week issued a reprimand to Paris for “excessive” government spending, and RN pledges look impossible to square with an EU-mandated plan due in the autumn on how France can reduce a deficit well above the EU legal limit.

While Macron as president would remain in charge of foreign policy, in practice, government ministers play a vital role in drawing up EU laws, whether on green policies or migration.

France’s national assembly also controls the country’s chequebook, meaning an RN government could jeopardise France’s future aid for Ukraine. Bardella vowed last week not to “put into question” France’s defence spending, but opposes sending troops or long-range weapons to Ukraine.

Susi Dennison, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), said that while Macron had been strongly pro-European, the French public was much more sceptical of the European project.

An ECFR survey in 2019 found 69% of French voters felt the EU and domestic political systems were broken, against a 38% EU average. In January 2024, 56% of French people thought French and European politics were broken.

“It’s always been a bit of a strange phenomenon within the European project that at political, policymaking level, [France] drives the project, but at a public level it has always been quite sceptical,” Dennison said.

Forced into a painful “cohabitation” with a parliament of the opposite persuasion, Macron could have far less room for manoeuvre on the EU stage.