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Marine Le Pen’s Far-Right National Rally Leading in Run-up to First Round of French Elections [1]

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Date: 2024-06-27  

Will a National Rally Victory Turn the Olympics Into A Berlin Propaganda Fest?

The news from France is gobsmacking. On the cusp of hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics, French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called for snap elections . It is very possible that Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) party, which just won over 30 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections, will take over the reins of France. If that happens, will the Olympics turn into a Berlin 1936-esque festival of right-wing propaganda.

As of this writing, Le Pen’s National Rally is leading in the polls with an estimated 35 percent in Sunday’s first round, with a left-wing alliance following at 29 percent and Macron’s party coming in at about 20 percent.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, maintains that by calling for snap elections, Macron is raining on her city’s parade, spoiling the party.

As The Nation magazine’s Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff recently reported, “Macron, a centrist, may see positive outcomes no matter the election results: Either support for National Rally craters when people enter the voting booth and confront actually putting the far-right party into power or National Rally rules over a divided government and, when faced with actual governing decisions, falls on its face. Macron is blithe enough to risk empowering those who flirt with fascism, insensitive to the attacks that would be unleashed on the most vulnerable French citizens if the RN seizes control of the levers of government.”

During the lead-up to the Olympics, which many in France opposed due to the juxtaposition of excessive spending to bring the Olympics to France against the cutbacks in the social safety by Macron’s government.

Should National Rally, now fronted by the Le Pen’s right-hand man, Jordan Bardella, win, they will be given an unprecedented platform for their toxic political views. “Even if the National Rally loses, its leadership will be the talk of international politics right when the spotlight of the Olympics shines down,” Zirin and Boykoff noted.

Bardella, is the 28-year-old protégé of Le Pen, who, according to The Nation, “has enjoyed a meteoric rise in French politics on the back of his TikTok presence, designer suits, and savage Islamophobia.”

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