<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/as-in-us-cultural-dissatisfaction-in-france-driving-voters-with-catholics-turning-to-marine-le-pen/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">When President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament </mark></a>on June 9 2024 and sent the French to the polls in a snap election he said it was in search of "clarification".
Marine Le Pen’s nationalist party, the National Rally, had just achieved a landslide victory in the European elections and Macron’s miscalculation was that a parliamentary election would bring the people to their senses and they would vote for him. They didn’t. Far from clarifying the situation, the two rounds of the parliamentary election have plunged France into chaos.
The New Popular Front – a left-wing coalition of Socialists, Greens, Communists and far-left radicals – won the most seats in parliament but the National Rally won the popular vote, with 37 per cent of all ballots cast, 12 per cent more than the left and 14 per cent more than Macron’s centrist alliance.
So why didn’t Le Pen’s party win more than its 126 seats? Because the left and the centre connived in the week between the first and second rounds to block the National Rally. This is a tactic known as <em>désistements, </em>tactical withdrawals, whereby a left or a centrist candidate pulled out and instructed its voters to cast their ballot for the left or centrist remaining against the National Rally.
The National Rally, which had come out on top after the first round, had been projected to win as many 290 seats in the second round – enough for an absolute majority in parliament – but in the event it obtained only half that number.
Coupled with the political machinations, there was also a concerted campaign against the National Rally from the worlds of culture, art, sport. education and journalism.
<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-0-kylian-mbappe-and-friends-1-french-football-vote/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The likes of the French football captain, Kylian Mbappe,</mark></a> is entitled to air his political views, but one may regard it as a poor reflection on the impartiality of the French media when <a href="https://www.lejdd.fr/politique/64-journalistes-de-20-minutes-appellent-leur-media-prendre-un-engagement-clair-contre-le-rn-147025#:~:text=Publicit%C3%A9-,64%20journalistes%20de%20%C2%AB20%20Minutes%C2%BB%20appellent%20leur%20m%C3%A9dia%20%C3%A0%20prendre,le%20traitement%20du%20Rassemblement%20national."><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">dozens of journalists campaign against a political party supported by millions of its fellow citizens.</mark></a>
In contrast, the Catholic Church remained strictly neutral. On June 20, ten days before the first round of voting, <a href="https://eglise.catholique.fr/espace-presse/communiques-de-presse/553159-au-sujet-de-la-situation-en-france-priere-des-eveques-du-conseil-permanent-de-la-cef-a-lattention-des-fideles/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">the Permanent Council of the Catholic Church in France issued a carefully-worded statement</mark> </a>in which they said the "dissolution of the National Assembly has thrown our country into unexpected turmoil".
The Council called on people to vote but refrained from giving any political instructions about casting their ballot. Rather, the statement said that "the social malaise we are witnessing is certainly linked to political decisions, but it goes deeper than that. It is also due to the individualism and selfishness into which our societies have allowed themselves to be dragged for decades".
The Council gave some examples: the weakening of the family unit, the pressure of consumerism and the decline in respect for human life.
The statement ended by saying that it was beholden to draw on God's grace "to overcome fear, anger and anxiety and to be 'peacemakers' and agents of social friendship".
<a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/elections/legislatives/legislatives-comment-les-representants-des-principales-religions-se-positionnent-avant-le-vote-edb107e4-3ab2-11ef-a94b-3d33d29d1a10"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The Church was criticised in some quarters</mark></a> because it hadn’t joined the Republican Front, the name given to the process whereby polite society blocks the National Rally from power.
That the Church remained neutral is to their credit. The National Rally – known as the National Front from its formation in 1972 to its rebrand in 2018 – was in its early days a nasty party. Some of its founders were anti-Semites and one had even fought in the French division of the Waffen SS in the Second World War.
But this century it has undergone a transformation. Many of its voters are disadvantaged, among the 9.1 million people in France who live below the breadline. It is also the party of the provinces, where the Church is strongest in France, picking up votes from agricultural workers and people who have suffered from deindustrialisation.
The National Rally also attracts voters opposed to "woke" progressivism, which, among other things, seeks to undermine the traditional family, as well as French people worried about the rise of radical Islam and mass immigration. These issues have boosted the party’s support among Catholics; <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/as-in-us-cultural-dissatisfaction-in-france-driving-voters-with-catholics-turning-to-marine-le-pen/">in last month’s European elections</a>, </mark>32 per cent of Catholics voted for the National Rally, compared to 18 per cent in the 2019 elections.
Furthermore, the Anti-Semitism that once was synonymous with the National Rally is now more associated with the far-left <em>la France insoumise</em>; <a href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/pour-92-des-juifs-francais-la-france-insoumise-contribue-a-faire-monter-l-antisemitisme-20240607">a<mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"> recent poll revealed that 92 per cent of French Jews believe this party is responsible for the resurgence of Anti-Semitism.</mark></a>
As for Macron, since he became president in 2017 the gap in France between the haves and the have-nots has increased. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/europe/france-emmanuel-macron.html">Dubbed the "President of the Rich" not long into his presidency,</a> Macron’s nickname is well deserved; after he was re-elected in 2022, <a href="https://rmc.bfmtv.com/actualites/politique/19-ministres-millionnaires-le-gouvernement-n-a-jamais-rassemble-autant-de-riches_AV-202212060417.html"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Macron named a government containing 43 ministers, 19 of whom were millionaires.</mark></a>
In reiterating its neutrality before the elections, <a href="https://eglise.catholique.fr/espace-presse/communiques-de-presse/553159-au-sujet-de-la-situation-en-france-priere-des-eveques-du-conseil-permanent-de-la-cef-a-lattention-des-fideles/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">the Permanent Council issued a prayer for the faithful </mark></a>who wished to associate themselves with it. It ended thus: "Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joan of Arc, St Theresa of the Child Jesus, patron saints of France, watch over our country. May it be a land of freedom, justice and fraternity, and live up to its role in history."
President Macron may have failed to clarify the situation in France, but the Church has underlined its position as a beacon of impartiality in an otherwise bitterly divided country.
