Over 200 French election candidates stop in effort to dam hard-Right

Opponents of France‘s anti-immigration National Rally party last night made final bids to keep it from power.

The hard-Right party, known as RN, led by Marine Le Pen, was the clear winner of the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, winning a third of all votes across all 577 constituencies.

But there is a second round of votes for candidates who secured more than 12.5 per cent and less than 50 per cent in the first round.

And opponents of the RN – including President Emmanuel Macron‘s centrist Together (Ensemble) coalition and Left-wing alliance the New Popular Front – yesterday faced a deadline for tactically pulling out candidates in constituencies where uniting anti-Right wing voters could deny the RN victory.

In 218 constituencies, the third-placed candidate last night withdrew, making for multiple local coalitions of anti-hard-right voters.

Marine Le Pen’s far-Right RN party steamed to victory with 33 per cent of the first round vote

Candidates are now dropping out in a bid to oust the far-Right following Macron’s slow start 

Would-be RN prime minister Jordan Bardella last night called the arrangements an ‘alliance of dishonour’ which shames the French Republic.

In the first round the New Popular Front came second with 28.5 per cent, and embarrassed Mr Macron’s party third with 22 per cent.

Together, their support clearly exceeds that for the RN, and those fearing extremism may be galvanised by yesterday’s news that one RN candidate was being withdrawn after she was pictured posing in a Nazi military cap.

The party has long tried to distance itself from suggestions its members include Nazi sympathisers. 

A long shadow has been cast by former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, current leader Marine’s father, who infamously described Hitler’s Jewish holocaust as a ‘detail’ of history.

But that did not stop RN candidate Ludivine Daoudi, 47, who secured 20 per cent of the first round vote in her Normandy constituency, smiling as she wore a Second World war Luftwaffe officer’s cap, complete with swastika.

RN spokesman Phlippe Chapron admitted the image was ‘bad taste. As he said Ms Daoudi had ‘withdrawn her candidacy today’.

Mr Chapron went on: ‘She does not deny it – this photo was taken of her at an arms sale several years ago.’

Ms Daoudi had been standing in Caen in northern France, which the Nazi occupiers bitterly defended after the 1944 D-Day landings. Marine Le Pen, a repeated French presidential candidate, has been keen to ‘detoxify’ her party to make it more electable.

And if it does control 289 seats after Sunday’s second round, perhaps with the aid of co-operation with a handful of independents, Mr Macron will have no choice other than to appoint Ms Le Pen’s young parliamentary protégé Mr Bardella as prime minister.

Projections have suggested the RN could win between 260 and 310 seats, with the NPF on between 115 and 145 seats, and Together on between 90 and 120.

Any RN government would have to share power with President Macron, who is head of state until 2027.

Mr Bardella has already pledged to focus on an an anti-immigrant agenda, cancelling the automatic right of anybody born in France to foreign parents to French citizenship.

He has also said he will crack down on duel-nationals holding high-security jobs in France, such as running nuclear power stations.

Demonstrators take part in a rally against the RN following the announcement of the results of the first round of the parliamentary elections at Place de la Republique, Paris on June 30

Tension rises as demonstrators gather in Place de la Republique, to protest against the rising right-wing movement in Paris, France on June 30, 2024

Ms Le Pen yesterday accused president Macron of planning an ‘administrative coup d’état’, by preparing a number of key appointments in the police and army just days ahead of Sunday’s crucial vote.

She said: ‘When you want to counter the results of an election by nominating your people to jobs, and when that stops the government from being able to carry out policies which the French people have asked for, I call that an administrative coup d’état.’

Mr Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called the snap election on June 9, after defeat at the hands of the National Rally in France’s European Parliament.

He is now accused, even by members of his own camp, of having rolled out the red carpet for the National Rally, with voters disgruntled by inflation, immigration and Mr Macron himself.

The possible imminence of a hard right parliament has overshadowed run-up to the Olympics centred in Paris in just a few weeks.