The French National Centre: from aggression to calm

March 2018. Absolute silence among those attending the sports club in Lille. His leader, the loser of the presidential election, was waiting to hear Marine Le Pen. During the sixteenth Congress of the National Front, the leader who gave a strong understanding after the defeat explained the reasons why he lost to the Emmanuel Macron En Marche movement, and stressed the need to restructure the party.

He embarked on a journey to return to the theses previously defended by his father, Jean-Marie Le Pen or his nephew, Marion Maréchal Le Pen. It could be said that Marine's intervention in Lille was the beginning of the change of strategy currently taking place in part of the European extreme right. Convinced that the change will bring victory, the foundations of the ultra-right uprising movement have again named Le Pen a candidate at the seventeenth Congress held in Perpignan in July of this year.

Guillermo Fernández Vázquez has analyzed this transformation of Lille sufficiently in his book What to do with the European extreme right: the case of the national front in France, the new name that has annexed the movement, now called the French National Rassemblem. According to Vázquez, the change of strategy was nothing more than a setback, a withdrawal from the old reactionary and neoliberal slogans defended by his father, Le Pen, although most of them have never disappeared. The Lille Congress also served to bury the workers’ defenders and opposition of the European Union, which were the axes of the slogan Au nom du peuple (on behalf of the people) used in the 2017 campaign.

Aware of the change of direction, the first to leave the party was Florian Philippot, from the hand of the leader, architect of the national-sovereign strategy that until then had to lead Marine Le Pen to the Elysée. After leaving the National Assembly Centre, he has participated in several initiatives of the ultra-right group Génération Identitaire, recently dissolved by the order of the Government of France.

Presidential elections 2022: The paradox of Lille

The new formula is crushed by xenophobia and neo-liberalism. Immigrants are in the spotlight, but the party wants to appear in front of the middle class with a face different from yours. The change of direction has brought the movement closer to the social base of Les Republicans, the party that represents the classical right.

This was corroborated by the latest survey published by Electograph in May, which validated the tax seat. In the second round, Macron would impose himself with 53% of the votes, while Le Pen would do with 47%. In May, therefore, the far-right was closer than ever to the Elysées than the rest. With the new strategy, they were engaged in the initiative of appropriating a Republicanism without a strong father. However, in the summer, the playing field has changed again to harm them. Paradoxically, the classical right (lists supported by Les Republicans) who wanted to swallow Le Pen was imposed in the June departmental elections in seven regions of metropolitan France.

Despite the fact that abstention has been conditional (almost 70 per cent in all regions), the pandemic and protests such as those jackets have made it clear that Emmanuel Macron is no longer electionally so strong. The event, which could change all the above calculations, has taken place in the department of Heights in France, in the French capital. The victory has been for Republican Xavier Bertrand.

The victory could make Bertrand become the Republican candidate for next year’s presidential election. Not knowing what will happen in the party primaries, that has opened the door for Republicans to enter the second round. The bad news for Le Pen, who relocated the message, has not managed to capitalize on the concern against the government, nor on many of the enclaves in which its fortifications have historically existed.

At a time when weak Republicanism can reproduce like the Phoenixa, has it not been the excessive withdrawal of Marine Le Pen? The ghost of Bertrand is going to get dusty, as it can frustrate the extreme right's efforts to conquer Paris. Bertrand is very strong in the survey conducted by Europe Elects between 29 June and 2 July this year.

The love of Salvini and Berlusconi: Measured withdrawal of the Act

The Italian Lega is changing in a similar way to that of the French National Congress Centre (CNN). In 2020, in the regional elections in Tuscany and Emilia Romagna (strengths of the left), the slogans for the workers and against Europe, however little, did not serve him to win. After these two defeats began the escape of the Salvini party, which became the prime minister.

The party returns to the natural postulates of the charismatic creator of the Humberto Bossi movement. It has set aside the anti-European flag and the liberal theses, in addition to strengthening them further, continue to spread the xenophobia that they have always borne in mind. Instead of pointing out the citizens of southern Italy with the current racist speeches, they have the border between migrants and refugees.

The former Italian Interior Minister seems to have been pushed into a more possible position by the Italian situation and the State lobbies, who witnessed support for the national unity government led by Mario Draghi. The change of strategy for the centre has meant a strengthening of a historical competitor: The Fratelli d'Italia party, led by Giorgia Meloni, is the party of the nostalgic fascists in Rome and the south.

In the face of Meloni's threat, Salvini has made a decision to move away and knock at Berlusconi's door. Spanish journalist Ismael Monzón has written from Rome that the love story of the two leaders of Milan can be made public in a short time. According to Italian journalist Emmanuele Lauria, the experiment would be called ForzaLega. Like Le Pen, they have taken the path of roots by joining their twin brother in the 1990s and, as far as possible, devouring him.

The same goal: replace the traditional right

These movements suggest that the aim of the planned withdrawal in Lille is to devour the classic European right, worn down in opposition and without a clear ideological reference. Before, when this was impossible, they developed a false discourse against globalization and the establishment. Above and beyond the latest developments, each of them will make its own march to Rome to achieve this goal.

For this purpose, spaces such as the Institut De Sciences Sociales Économiques, run by Marion Marechal Le Pen and based in Madrid, are essential. There they conspire the multiple branches of the extreme right, in this desire to present themselves as a single conservative alternative to the social crisis caused by the pandemic.

Germany symbol of the failure of the far right

Angela Merkel's farewell comes to Germany. In the primaries held by the CDU in January to succeed him, Armin Laschet, together with him, imposed Merkel’s pragmatism and the tendency to centre. After the victory, the CDU has continued to move away from the AFD, the party representing the ultra-right movement, after losing its primaries to the pretensions of Friedrich Merz.

The hypothetical victory of Armin Laschet in the September elections can be a source of inspiration for the European liberal right, in the absence of referents. In the meantime, Merkel, with the help of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, is bearing fruit on the barrier imposed on the AFD. Unlike in France and Italy, the AFD is weakened as the elections approach.

For Laschet, the rival to beat would be a liberal green party, which is very strong in the polls. Repeating the great coalition after the results of September, a unity government could be created with the Green Party, as Merkel has already done with the Social Democrats of the SPD.