PARIS, Sept 4 (Reuters) – France’s far-right National Rally is fine-tuning its candidate list for a possible snap legislative election, seeking to avoid what it called “casting errors” that let several “black sheep” derail its hopes for a majority in last year’s vote.
With the government hanging by a thread, the RN is betting President Emmanuel Macron’s only path out of France’s latest budget crisis will be to dissolve its deeply divided parliament.
The RN is the largest single parliamentary party and believes it could finally win a majority that would give the far-right unprecedented power over the eurozone’s No. 2 economy.
Only Macron can call a vote, and even if he does, polls suggest the RN is unlikely to perform much better than last year, when opposition forces aligned to block it from power.
The party remains taboo for many in France, with a dark history and divisive pledges to slash immigrant welfare, limit their healthcare access and ramp up deportations.
Antisemitic, Islamophobic and racist comments by some RN candidates — later dubbed “black sheep” by party President Jordan Bardella who blamed “casting errors” for their inclusion — also contributed to its electoral shortcomings in 2024, undermining efforts to convince voters it had changed.
Meanwhile, fresh elections would mean party leader Marine Le Pen, who is barred from running in the 2027 presidential election after an embezzlement conviction which she has appealed, would lose her parliamentary seat, depriving her of a position of national influence.
Le Pen seems undeterred, hoping a fresh legislative election and a battery of legal appeals against her ban will leave her and the RN well positioned for 2027.
“We’re calling for an ultra-rapid dissolution,” she said on Tuesday after a meeting with Prime Minister Francois Bayrou. “That’s the only democratic solution.”
Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images
The RN has accelerated steps to recruit, train and develop would-be lawmakers, party sources told Reuters, with 85% of candidates already chosen and only a few dozen still vacant.