France is on the precipice of a far-right landslide

The French presidential race has begun. For the first time since 2017, Emmanuel Macron won’t be a part of it. And for the first time in her career, Marine Le Pen is the clear frontrunner, even after her conviction in a corruption scandal almost prevented her from running for public office. Prior to the final ruling, her second-in-command, Jordan Bardella, had tried to force his way in as the strongest National Rally presidential candidate, believing that Le Pen’s judicial vulnerability might translate an into electoral one - a costly ambition for which he is now paying, after Le Pen fired his closest associates inside the party. Now fully at her mercy, he may even lose his position as the movement’s president to Le Pen’s nephew, Marion Marechal, whose politics are even more racist than his own. The outcome of this troubled political-judicial sequence is not only Le Pen’s renewed control over her troops, and the expectation that she will win the first round of voting. Polls also identify her as the favourite for the second round, regardless of her rival. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters In short, the 2027 race is widely believed to be Le Pen’s to lose, after she launched her campaign around the themes of immigration and Islam. She plans to hold two referendums: one asking whether the French population supports her plan to restrict immigration, and another on banning the hijab in public spaces. Both would seek to cement the legitimacy of structural racism and Islamophobia through majoritarian approval. Bleak landscape Similar to the tactics used by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with regards to Brexit, Le Pen knows how effective a well-organised and relentless campaign can be. When mainstream media bombards the public with a specific narrative - even a false one - the Overton window can be drastically expanded across a bleak political landscape. Encouraged by their victories in the Islamophobic culture wars that have shaped the West since 9/11, and by the recent electoral coronations of US President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Germany’s AfD, French fascists believe they are on the verge of reaching the mountaintop. We are witnessing not an event, but an epoch. The eventual rise to power of the National Rally would be one of its chapters France - like the US, Italy and Germany before it - is ripe for a final and decisive push. To paraphrase philosopher Antonio Gramsci, we are witnessing not an event, but an epoch. The eventual rise to power of the National Rally would be one of its chapters. This epoch began with the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and the forces at play today are the mature offspring of that “war on terror”. While these movements refuse to hide their supremacist nature and authoritarian intent behind a veneer of political decorum, they do not fundamentally differ at their core from the governments that preceded them; they merely call for draconian Islamophobic measures to be adopted faster, with the backing of entire societies. The proposed hijab referendum in France should not be understood only as the move of an obsessively Islamophobic party, nostalgic for its colonial past. More broadly, it offers a perfect opportunity for an obsessively Islamophobic nation, nostalgic for its colonial past, to adopt legislation that could drive the last nail into the coffin of Muslims’ freedom of religion. Cynical tactics The electoral chessboard seems to offer only one surprising option for Muslims: Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the far-left France Unbowed party. It’s surprising because over the last two decades, Melenchon has been at the forefront of French Islamophobia. He endorsed the 2004 ban on the hijab in public schools, and years later supported the niqab ban, referring to veiled Muslim women as “ghosts”. He was also a staunch supporter of Bashar al-Assad at the height of the Syrian civil war, despite the former president’s crimes against the Syrian people. But amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Melenchon seemed to take a step towards the Muslim community. His party was the only one to firmly oppose Israel’s actions, even backing a Palestinian candidate, Rima Hassan, for the European Parliament. Why is France so obsessed with controlling Muslim women's bodies? Read More » From 2023 onwards, just a year after his disappointing defeat in the last presidential election, Melenchon’s pro-Palestinian stance gave his party much-needed momentum at a moment when his political career was on the line, breathing new life into his presidential ambitions. His recent apology for his previous opposition to the hijab, which he called a “terrible mistake”, suggested that he might have finally come to his senses on the urgent matter of Muslim freedom of religion. But he has also reportedly promised not to repeal the 2004 ban, to avoid reopening “the debate about clothing”, and because schools are meant to “protect children”. This contradiction can easily be explained by the cynical calculations of electoral politics. Confident that his position will secure him enough Muslim votes to reach the second round, Melenchon is preparing to then challenge Le Pen on her own turf, and potentially win over some of her voters. Structural Islamophobia would still have a bright future under his leadership, as he is clearly reluctant to tackle the nation’s Islamophobic consensus for the sake of electability. His strategy appears to entail leveraging Muslim grievances to improve his chances in the first round, only to abandon them in the second round (and, if successful, once in power). It is now incumbent on French Muslims to lead a new generation of citizens raging against educational decay and police violence, as well as the atrocities of the “war on terror” and the genocide in Gaza. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.