Recent French elections have often followed a familiar pattern. The far right makes fresh advances, the radical left shows it is still able to mount a serious challenge — but ultimately, just about enough voters rally around the centrist establishment for it to survive. It seems that when President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections to the National Assembly earlier this month, he expected to rally the French middle classes behind him once more.

Yet it is far from clear that the status quo will indeed hold, or that he can rebuild a majority in parliament. With the first-round votes set for this Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is far ahead in polls (on around 35 percent), ahead of the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (almost 30 percent) and Macron’s own allies (just over 20 percent). For years, Le Pen’s agenda on immigration and Islam has become more mainstream: now, her party seems to be on the brink of a victory that would leave Macron a mere lame-duck president.

Ugo Palheta is author of La Possibilité du Fascisme. His analysis explores recent trends toward “fascisation” in French society, including the rise of Le Pen’s party but also the authoritarianism and Islamophobia that has already developed under Macron’s government. Elsa Gautier interviewed him about the snap elections, the social decay that helps explain the Rassemblement National’s rise — and the Left’s chances of providing an alternative.