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The French parliamentary elections have concluded, and the right-wing National Rally (NR) has once again been blocked from power by the “Republican Front,” an electoral strategy perennially deployed by the French political establishment to prevent the “far right” from obtaining power.
This time around, however, the increasing popularity of the NR and the split within the center-right Les Républicains over collaborating with them in the legislative elections actually weakened the “Republican Front.”
However, Macron’s centrist coalition and the leftist New Popular Front’s strategic withdrawal of over 200 candidates in the second round of voting managed to limit NR’s parliamentary gains to 142 seats, despite earning the most votes in the second round, with over 37% of the overall vote.
Under the proportional election system that was scrapped after the 1986 parliamentary election, NR would have secured 219 seats. At the time, the party—then called the Front National, led by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen—won 9.65% of the vote and gained 35 seats in the parliament.
While liberals took to X/Twitter to self-congratulate themselves on defeating the so-called “far right,” France’s Jewish community had a different reaction.
National Review Columnist Jonah Goldberg—who is Jewish—took to X/Twitter to say, “Glad the French far-right had its wings clipped. The French far-left, however, will be a disaster for France if they have their way.”
Jewish Author Ben M Freeman would also chime in to castigate those celebrating the leftist New Popular Front’s victory by reminding them that one of its main organizers, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has a “long history of Jew-hate.” Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise (LFI), constitutes a significant portion of the New Popular Front coalition.
Glad the French far right had its wings clipped. The French far left, however, will be a disaster for France if they have their way.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) July 7, 2024
In his victory speech, Mélenchon demanded that “France must recognize the Palestinian state now…The balance of power must show that the whole world condemns this genocide.”
This was later reiterated by prominent LFI MP Mathilde Panot, who promised to recognize Palestinian statehood within two weeks. Interestingly, Panot had faced a police investigation earlier in the year for the crime of “apology for terrorism” due to her criticism of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon who is sweeping to a shock victory in the French election has called for the recognition of a “State of Palestine”…
— Pelham (@Resist_05) July 7, 2024
“France must recognize the Palestinian state now…. The balance of power must show that the whole world condemns this… pic.twitter.com/tuIrnlnK85
Mélenchon and his party have faced unrelenting scrutiny by France’s Jewish community for their stated positions against Israel, which has only intensified after the events of October 7th. Mélenchon himself has been castigated by Jews for his refusal to condemn Hamas, the duly elected leaders of the besieged Gaza Strip.
LFI’s initial statement on the widely successful Hamas military raid into Israel referred to October 7th as an “armed offensive by Palestinian forces” that came “in the context of the intensification by Israel of the policy of occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
Mélenchon would also stand firm amid criticism from the Jewish community by refusing to denounce his deputy Daniele Obono, who once boldly referred to Hamas as a “resistance movement.”
However, Mélenchon’s support of Palestine is not the only source of claims that he is “antisemitic.”
For over a decade, he has consistently criticized the Representative Council of Jews of France (CRIF), an umbrella group for national Jewish organizations, similar to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the United States.
He described CRIF as one of “those aggressive communities that lecture the country” in 2014 and accused them of using antisemitism as a “stun weapon” in 2017.
Mélenchon also attacked French President Macron in 2017 for accepting French complicity in the Holocaust. “Never, at any moment, did the French choose murder and anti-Semitic criminality.”
In 2019, when commenting on British Labour leader Corbyn, Mélenchon remarked that Corbyn “had to endure unsupported accusations of anti-Semitism from England’s chief rabbi and various influence networks associated with Likud. Instead of responding, he spent his time apologizing and making promises…This demonstrated a vulnerability that unsettled the broader electorate.”
In a 2020 interview on a French news channel, Mélenchon once stated that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. During a discussion about protests in France, he remarked that the police should “stay put like Jesus on the cross without reacting” and added, “I don’t know if Jesus was on a cross, but apparently he was put there by his own people.”
While Mélenchon’s party aligns with the Jewish community in supporting mass immigration, Mélenchon has refused to moderate his party’s economic, Euroskeptic, anti-NATO, and anti-Zionist positions, quite unlike Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.
Despite lingering “far-right” elements in the NR, exemplified by a candidate withdrawing from the second round after a photo of her wearing a WWII-era Luftwaffe Air Force cap resurfaced online, the party has significantly moderated since Marine Le Pen took over from her father in 2011.
The emergence of Jordan Bardella as Le Pen’s right-hand man has further liberalized the National Rally’s economic platform, aligning it with other National Conservative parties in Europe, such as Italian PM Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.
Le Pen has rebranded the party from Front National to National Rally and, in doing so, has softened its economic, Eurosceptic, anti-NATO, and anti-Zionist stances. She now even presents herself as a defender of France’s Jewish diaspora.
France’s ‘renowned’ nazi hunter and Israel’s Diaspora Minister apparently agree as both controversially closed ranks behind Le Pen’s National Rally as the “lesser of two evils” in the election compared to Mélenchon’s New Popular Front.
However, despite Le Pen’s overtures, a level of personal distrust of Le Pen has prevented the National Rally from receiving full Jewish backing.
In the 2022 French presidential election, political commentator Éric Zemmour—who is Jewish—outflanked Le Pen from the right with his own presidential bid by talking about the Great Replacement.
Zemmour would go on to create Reconquête, a more “hardcore” anti-immigration party, by peeling away NR’s more radical members, including Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal.
While his presidential bid did not go far, in the last EU elections, over 42.15% of French voters in Israel voted for Zemmour’s Reconquête party, compared to the 11.71% who voted for NR.
Reconquête would subsequently implode over the question of whether it would collaborate with NR in snap elections called by President Macron after the EU elections, something Zemmour vocally opposed.
French President Macron warned that voting against his party was a vote against stability and that voting for one of the two “extremes”—National Rally or the New Popular Front—could spark a civil war in the country.
The emergence of Macron and his centrist party in the 2017 presidential election to stop Le Pen is what has dismantled the traditional center-left and right parties in France, leading to the radicalization of French politics in 2024.
This development has left France’s Jewish diaspora caught between the immigration-restrictive NR and the anti-Zionist LFI. Leaving the Jewish community with two equally unappealing options.
While some of the Jewish diaspora in France may be warming to the idea of the National Rally as their best option, others, like the chief Rabbi of Paris’ Grande Synagogue, are urging young Jews to flee the country.
This is happening as France’s political climate intensifies amid a cost of living crisis caused by Western energy sanctions against Russia, racial tensions due to mass immigration, and increased anti-Zionist activism and protests triggered by Israel’s war in Palestine.
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