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France will hold a presidential election in just six months. And current polls show far-right leader Marine Le Pen in first place. The party Le Pen leads, once a pariah, is today France's most popular. Many believe the current chaos around a nationwide protest movement could also be boosting her chances. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Chanting anti-fascist slogans is a big part of the French student protest movement. One particular battle cry against Marine Le Pen's far-right party has been around for decades, saying young people will derail the National Front.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in French).
BEARDSLEY: The National Front was founded 55 years ago by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a veteran of France's Algerian war. The party's old guard included collaborators from France's World War II Vichy regime. For decades, the vast majority of French people considered the party contrary to the values of the French Republic. But today, polls show a third of French voters support it, far more than any other party. So can it still be considered extreme? - asks Julian Jackson, a historian of France.
JULIAN JACKSON: Because the paradox obviously is, many of their ideas have now become so banal, so part of the mainstream. A party whose ideas are now almost the mainstream, can it be extreme right?
BEARDSLEY: Ideas like ending immigration and closing French borders. Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the far right, agrees that times have changed as far-right parties surge in parts of Europe. He says Le Pen has also changed her father's party and made it her own.
JEAN-YVES CAMUS: She's not like her father. She's not antisemitic. She's not a Holocaust denier. And she had to change the party. She had to stop with the antisemitic jokes of her late father. She had to expel the most extreme people within the party.
BEARDSLEY: The party, now rebaptized the National Rally, is attracting voters beyond its white working-class base, like traditional conservatives, especially as support for French mainstream and centrist parties has collapsed in recent years, says Camus.
CAMUS: The real conservative right is so weak. So when you want to vote for a candidate from the right, and you see that you need to choose between a guy who will poll 6% and Marine Le Pen, who stands at 35%...
BEARDSLEY: He says there is also a younger generation that doesn't know its history and thinks the National Rally is a conservative party like any other.
(SHOUTING)
BEARDSLEY: Recent scenes on TV of chaos and violence around the school protest movement have revolted many French people. Le Pen is capitalizing on that sentiment.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: At her party congress last month, Le Pen said she would restore the rule of law.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Who can claim we have rule of law when hordes come to sack, pillage and burn our buildings?" she thundered.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LE PEN: (Speaking French).
(BOOING)
BEARDSLEY: Political scientist Camus says if protests continue to turn violent, more people could turn to Le Pen.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Vendors hawk their fresh fruits and vegetables at a bustling Paris street market this week. Michel Friedlander (ph) is standing in the doorway of his wine shop.
MICHEL FRIEDLANDER: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: He says shop owners are afraid after the looting and smashing that's gone on. He says, for the first time, he plans to vote for Le Pen.
FRIEDLANDER: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "If people think a bit and aren't afraid of a little adventure, they'll vote Le Pen," he says. "It's the right, but a much more moderate party than her father's. So what have we got to lose?" Plenty, says Camus. Even if the National Rally has changed, it's not the right wing of a mainstream conservative movement like MAGA is. The National Rally, he says, has extremist roots. And Le Pen carries the legacy of the party's fascist past.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF NUJABES, SHING02 SONG, "LUV(SIC) PART 3") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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