The first round of France’s presidential elections cleared the dust of an intense campaign: ultimately, as the polls had promised for years, Emmanuel Macron will again face Marine Le Pen in this Sunday’s runoff vote. As in 2017, the first round produced a close race, with the radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon less than 1 percent behind his far-right rival Le Pen. But even a surprise breakthrough for Mélenchon would not have concealed a major development: never has the far right been so electorally powerful in France. Beyond the conflict between the rival strategies of Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, discussed previously at Jacobin, this mainstreaming of far-right forces also owes to a radicalization of the wider political field.

In this article, I will start by discussing the radicalization of the mainstream-conservative Les Républicains (LR). One of postwar France’s two main parties, its base is today divided between Macron and the far right. Here, I will explain how successive French governments, particularly since Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency from 2007–12, have enabled and contributed to a mainstreaming of such forces’ ideology. In this sense, we can also see that Le Pen and Zemmour’s rival strategies and candidacies are also complementary. While competition may undermine their short-term chances, it benefits the spread of far-right ideas in the long run.