Macron surge leaves French far-right wounded in political arena

Gilbert Collard is in a battle for his political future with France’s most famous female bullfighter — and is in danger of being put to the sword.

The 69-year-old National Front politician has represented voters in Gard, a rural part of southern France, for five years. But polls suggest he will lose Sunday’s legislative elections to the candidate of President Emmanuel Macron: Marie Sara, a celebrity former torera who counts new-wave film director Jean-Luc Godard as a godparent.

The fight in this FN stronghold is emblematic of the way Mr Macron, with his year-old movement composed in large measure of political neophytes, has shaken up French politics — and left his far-right opponents, who not so long ago harboured their own ambitions of storming into the Elysée palace as insurgents, clinging to scant hopes of progress.

Mr Collard, who is wearing thick Prada sunglasses and sucking on a pipe in the afternoon sun, is confident that his electors want to send a message of defiance to the new centrist French government: “I want to fight what he is planning to do this country,” he says.

But on the nearby streets of Aimargues many voters say they do not want his brand of opposition. “I think maybe we should give Macron a chance,” says Sylvie Allaire, a 41-year-old shop assistant sitting in the little town square. Her friend, Clara, also in her 40s, said: “I will vote for Macron’s candidate . . . let’s see what he can do.”

Mr Collard’s potential loss reflects the broader weakness of the FN, which is beset by doubt and infighting at the same time as Mr Macron’s Republique en Marche! is gathering momentum.

An Ipsos poll this week showed the FN getting just 17 per cent of the national vote, far behind the 34 per cent they took in the presidential election. This will probably translate into between five and 15 seats in the 577-strong National Assembly — an improvement on the two the FN has today but modest compared to the hundreds of seats it once hoped to capture.

It calls into question the claim by Marine Le Pen, the FN’s leader, following the presidential election last month that her party is now France’s main opposition.

Since the FN’s poor result in the presidential election the party has been beset by infighting, with senior figures exchanging verbal blows about who was to blame. Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, one of its most influential figures, has said she is quitting politics. One faction is arguing that the party should radically change its political line to embrace the far-right and abandon the statism and anti-euro rhetoric that has defined its strategy since 2011. With no resolution in sight, the debate rages on.

“It is not going well for the FN in the legislatives,” says Sylvain Crépon, professor at Paris Ouest Nanterre University. “After such a low score in the presidential elections, voters are demotivated and people in the party are turning against each other.”

While the FN grapples with its disappointment, Mr Macron’s party is going from strength to strength and is expected to win a clear majority in Sunday’s elections — something many analysts thought impossible just a few months ago.

Mr Collard complains about how the legislative election, with a two-round, first-past-the-post system, punishes the FN. The party traditionally comes second in a large number of districts but wins few seats.

“Lucky we are a democratic party . . . or we could ask support to take to the streets,” says Mr Collard.

But he says he is ultimately resigned to a disappointing outcome on Sunday. “Macron will get a big majority,” he says, adding that there was little chance that the FN could get “more than 15” seats.

Still, if the FN were to get 15 seats, it would be some kind of victory: that number of seats would mean it could form an official political grouping in the National Assembly, allowing it a more active parliamentary role and more financial support.

Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at think-tank Fondation Jean-Jaurès, says that 15 seats would be a “positive step” for the FN, giving it a base of power going forward. “If they get five though, it would not be good. There would be a great deal more internal infighting,” he says.

FN supporters are also adjusting their expectations. Sophie Ardin, a middle-aged former supermarket worker in Aimargues who lost her job in March, says that earlier this year she was hopeful Ms Le Pen could have been president. Today she will vote FN while accepting that the party will remain far from power and Mr Macron’s party could deliver a coup de grâce to its rivals in the elections.

“We need people in parliament to fight for ordinary French people against the government,” she says. “But I know that Macron is going to win big . . . in the end he is going to be able to do more or less what he likes.”