This is a guest post by Cyril Rolling
Politics are trying to return to the fore in France more than one month after the country was hit by terrorists who took the life of 17 innocent people in the heart of its capital. Political parties are now working harder and harder to get ready for the local elections organized for March.
The UMP is the mainstream centre-right party led by Mr. Sarkozy, the former French president. The Front National (FN) is the far right party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen and currently headed by his daughter, Marine Le Pen. Everybody is focusing on the UMP/FN relationship to determine whether these two movements might join forces if one of them is up against the Socialists in the second round of the elections.
This is a sensitive issue. Despite its mainstreaming since Marine Le Pen took over from her father, the far right party is still strongly criticized by politicians and editorialists from all over the political chessboard. It is seen as populist, racist, anti-Semitic… But it is more and more seen as a political alternative for people who are disappointed by the last 30 years’ policies and Marine Le Pen could win the first round of the next 2017 presidential election according to the latest surveys which credit her with around 30 per cent of voting intentions.
This is why the UMP and the Socialists have to deal with this third party to determine their political parameters. The problem concerns the important ideological differences within the UMP: some are very centre-right oriented while others are far more conservative, with adamant views on immigration and social issues. These branches faced each other during the last month’s parliamentary by-elections when Mr. Juppé, a former Prime Minister, appealed to his supporters to vote for the Socialist candidate against the FN after the UMP was defeated in the first round whereas Mr. Sarkozy refused to plead in favor of the Socialists or against the FN. Each branch may conserve this approach in the future: some will favor local alliances with the FN while the official position is still to reject these agreements.
The Socialist Government and its majority try to take advantage of this mess by denouncing what they call a rapprochement with the far-right. They insist on the controversial positions adopted by Marine Le Pen and some of her representatives, and denounce their alleged links with disputed organizations like Generation Identitaire – a far-right movement whose major concern is to fight against “the Islamization of the European continent”.
