Marine Le Pen β or the hard left? Macron has left Franceβs voters with a βscary choiceβ | Paul Taylor
With the collapse of centrist parties, voters are caught between the National Rally, a left mired in controversy β or abstaining altogether
Itβs a choice between the plague and cholera. Millions of French voters are agonising at the prospect of having to choose between a candidate of Marine Le Penβs hard-right anti-immigration National Rally (Rassemblement National β RN) party and Jean-Luc MΓ©lenchonβs hard-left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise β LFI) movement in parliamentary election runoffs on 7 July.
Barring a dramatic comeback by President Emmanuel Macronβs centrist bloc in the 30 June first round, the second ballot in roughly half of the 577 constituencies will pit a representative of Le Penβs illiberal national populists against a candidate of the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire β NFP), a hastily cobbled-together alliance of leftwing parties dominated by MΓ©lenchonβs radical leftists.
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...Β© Photograph: Remon Haazen/Getty Images
Β© Photograph: Remon Haazen/Getty Images