Almost all of the social and economic conditions are there for events in France to be replicated in Wales

Luke James

Days after a general election in which right-wingers have been swept from Westminster, the political winds in France are about to blow in the completely opposite direction.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) are set to at least double their number of seats in the second round of France’s parliamentary elections taking place on Sunday.

With up to 205 of the 577 seats, National Rally will almost certainly become the largest party in the Assemblée National, although polls suggest they will fall short of a majority.

It all appears a world away from us in Wales, where even the centre-right has been wiped out.

But scratch beneath the surface and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that we are closer than ever to following France down this destructive path.

One of the most shocking results in the first round of the French elections came in the 20th constituency of the Nord department, which the Communist Party had held in fourteen consecutive elections since 1962.

Electoral strength

Unlike in Britain, the Communist party retains electoral strength in parts of France and had government ministers as late as 2002. And the party was represented by its leader and the incumbent MP, Fabien Roussel, who was recently voted the most popular politician on the French left.

He faced no left-wing competitors thanks to the reformation of the Popular Front which saw the Communists and Socialists combine to win power in 1936. Despite all that, the race hasn’t even reached this Sunday’s second round because the National Rally won more than 50% at the first attempt.

The same story played out across the north-east, France’s answer to the red wall, where 17 seats were won by the National Rally last Sunday – half of all seats they won in the first round. In most cases, they had needed both rounds to beat the left of President Macron’s liberals last time.

Familiar story

How did we get here? The story is a familiar one: coalfield communities left behind by deindustrialisation and globalisation which now have higher than average unemployment and the highest levels of poverty in France.

These are the conditions on which the far-right thrive in any country. It is why Nigel Farage chose to launch Reform’s general election campaign in the Gurnos and why it came second in almost half of Welsh seats with 11.5 point increase in vote share.

Tata Steel’s decision to turn off one of the blast furnaces at Port Talbot on the day of the election adds further fuel to these flames.

The antidote is hope, but it is in shorter supply than it might be after a Labour landslide due to Keir Starmer’s determination to be seen as fiscally responsible above all else.

“I don’t think there can be anybody out there who has voted in this election who hadn’t heard him and [Chancellor] Rachel Reeves say that there’s not going to be much extra money for the first couple of years,” said former First Minister Mark Drakeford on Friday.

Mistakes

While Starmer must have understandably felt the weight of carrying the priceless Ming vase across the highly polished floor, he would do well to reflect on the mistakes made by Macron when it comes to actually exercising power – both in terms of policy and presentation.

For many in France, Macron, who attended Paris’ elite universities and worked as an investment banker before entering politics, represents an arrogant and out-of-touch elite.

That image was solidified in people’s minds by an incident in 2022 when Macron issued a Norman Tebbit-style rebuke to a young job seeker, saying he’d find work if he simply crossed the road.

As the son of a toolmaker and a nurse, Starmer’s background couldn’t be more different. But Welsh sociologist Dr Dan Evans has argued Starmer’s technocratic approach to politics means he is “in many ways the ultimate embodiment” of the same professional managerial class from which Macron comes.

This approach is most dangerously expressed through austerity as a form of medicine, with paternalistic governments telling the public they might not like it but it’s good for them – see the way Macron bypassed a vote in the French Parliament to raise the pension age by decree.

‘Sharp cuts’

Here the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that Labour’s approach to fiscal policy could imply “sharp cuts” in public spending.

Before going down that path, Starmer should bear in mind recent research on the political consequences of austerity in Europe which found that a 1% reduction in regional public spending leads to an increase in extreme parties’ vote share of around 3% – notably in former industrial regions.

Fourteen years of Conservative government has already pushed the public’s tolerance for underfunded services to breaking point.

And the Tories look set to keep handing gifts to Nigel Farage and co. from opposition.

Despite making comparisons with French socialism one of their main attack lines on Labour, the clearer parallel is between the Conservatives and their centre-right counterparts in the country.

Founded in a pragmatic Gaullist tradition by Jacques Chirac, Les Republicains (The Republicans) began drifting decidedly to the right under Nicolas Sarkozy and have never regained control.

The party lent respectability to far-right policies and talking points on immigration, with its last presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, a kind of Gallic Liz Truss, criticised for raising the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory in one of her campaign speeches.

The result of mainstreaming far-right ideas was ultimately the great replacement of The Republicans as the largest right-wing party by the National Rally.

Similarly, the Conservatives gave credibility to Reform through the Rwanda policy and slogans like “stop the boats.”

For The Republicans, this process reached its inevitable end point last month when Eric Ciotti, the president of The Republicans, announced he wanted to combine forces with the National Rally.

Farcical scenes

Grandees have tried to kick him out of the party and, in farcical scenes played out before TV cameras, out of the party’s office in Paris. But the damage to their brand has already been done.

The same conflict is now underway between different factions of the Conservative party. with the likes of Suella Braverman advocating for Farage to be brought into the fold while David Cameron has accused him of trying to destroy the party.

Among the places which have best resisted the rise of the National Rally are Brittany, the Basque Country and Corsica.

Not a single far-right candidate made it to the second round of the 2022 legislative elections in any of the three countries.

“The strong Breton identity weakens certain arguments from the National Rally about supposed threats to French identity,” explained Professor Arnauld Leclerc of Nantes University. “This is without a doubt also true in Corsica and the Basque Country.”

One of the most prominent candidates on the French left, Francois Ruffin, is also seeking to use regional identity to appeal to voters, standing under the banner of Picardie Debout (Arise Picardie) in order to avoid the same fate as the Communists in the post-industrial north-east.

A link between national identity and progressive politics is a source of pride for many in Wales too, as can be seen from celebrations of the conservative wipeout on Thursday.

But the results at home and abroad do show the limits of depending on national or regional identity as the sole firewall against the far-right.

Identifying as Welsh

The places in Wales which registered the highest votes for Reform on Thursday have among the highest share of residents strongly identifying as Welsh. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a large share of Welsh-identifying residents voted for Reform. But it underscores the fact that a homegrown vote for the populist-right is now part of our political landscape.

In Brittany, the National Rally go into Sunday’s second round leading in five constituencies. They were helped by a familiar controversy over the selection of the left’s candidates being selected centrally in Paris without consideration of local factors.

In the Basque Country and Corsica, the Nationally Rally have qualified for the second round in all of the constituencies.

Peio Dufau, a candidate for the left-wing New Popular Front in the Basque Country, explained the rise in support for the National Rally like this: “They are always presented in the media as the opposition to Emmanuel Macron and, even in the Basque Country, where there aren’t really National Rally activists, I think people voted for them thinking it was the way to get rid of Macron.”

There is a real risk that many voters could see Reform in the same way at the next elections if they take place against a background of an increasingly unpopular Labour government and a Conservative party in chaos.

As opposition parties in the ascendency after the general election, there is also a responsibility on Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens to offer those who feel left behind a progressive alternative that re-empowers people and communities rather than simply playing on their fears.

This ‘loveless landslide’ barely conceals considerable danger that lies just below the surface.

Almost all of the social and economic conditions are there for events in France to be replicated in Wales in the not distant future unless all parties learn the right lessons from the rise of the National Rally.