A review of the voting records from the European Parliament shows that members of the far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front) are often absent from the legislative process, cast votes that contradict stated party positions and are receptive to overtures from industrial lobbyists.
Campaigning for the European Elections on June 6-9, National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella has promised to fight for the interests of the French people.
But Bardella – who took over from Marine Le Pen as leader of the National Rally in 2022 – and his colleagues have often cast votes at the European Parliament that belie the party line. His votes against issues the party claims to support – women's rights, the transition to renewable energy and aid for vulnerable households – raise questions about what the National Rally stands for as he leads his party’s candidate list for the EU parliamentary elections.
Political adversaries delight in reminding Bardella of his long record of absenteeism at the European Parliament. In March his party felt compelled to respond, posting a graphic on social media hoping to prove the contrary that highlighted an attendance rate in Strasbourg of 93.95 percent.
But that figure is misleading, given that it only takes into account the MEP’s presence at plenary sessions, when EU lawmakers vote on texts and their attendance is logged. Parliamentary work is not confined to these sessions; on the contrary, much of it takes place in committee, where texts are amended. Unlike plenary sessions, where absenteeism incurs financial penalties, committee meetings are not subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament.
The investigative news programme Complément d'enquête found that between July 2019 and December 2023, Bardella missed 70 percent of his committee's meetings.
Disconnect: Words in Paris and votes in Strasbourg
The votes cast by National Rally MEPs reveal contradictions between the party's rhetoric and the votes cast by its elected representatives in Strasbourg.
National Rally members voted in 2021 against a European measure condemning the decision of the Polish Constitutional Court to impose a near-total ban on abortion and calling on “the Polish government to ensure that no more women die in Poland as a result of this restrictive law”. And yet former party leader Marine Le Pen spoke in January in favour of the French parliament’s vote to enshrine access to abortion in the French Constitution.
National Rally MEPs in January 2020 voted against or abstained on a resolution on unequal pay for women that called on member states to “step up their efforts to close the pay gap, once and for all”. And yet equal pay for women was an issue that Le Pen claimed to support in her Letter to French Women in March 7, 2022.
In speeches and campaign events, the National Rally takes a hardline stance on immigration and calls for strengthening the EU’s external borders.
But its MEPs have always voted against increasing funding for Frontex, the agency that coordinates and manages European borders. Jean-François Jalkh, a National Front MEP even called for “the abolition of Frontex” in 2016.
In 2019, all of France's far-right MEPs voted against increasing the number of Frontex agents to 10,000. That same year, Bardella accused Frontex of “financing migrant camps, particularly on Lesbos in Greece” and of behaving like a “host for migrants”.
Bardella has justified his opposition to the European Green Deal by saying he wants to make purchasing power a key issue of his campaign, claiming Europe’s push to reduce emissions will see the working and middle classes footing the bill for the green energy transition.
But in 2022 he and his party’s MEPs voted against the EU’s Social Climate Fund, which helps low-income households and small businesses shift from fossil fuels by making buildings energy efficient, purchasing an electric vehicle or through emissions-trading.
Industry lobbyists
The votes cast by National Rally MEPs have also shown they are not deaf to the arguments of industry lobbyists.
Ecolobby consultants, which serves environmental and socially responsible firms, has produced a website noting 10 times there were “convergences of interest” between industry lobbies and the votes of National Rally MEPs, “to the detriment of the general interest and that of the most disadvantaged”.
The JeVoteLobby.fr website also highlights Bardella and his colleagues’ opposition to taxing windfall corporate profits.
National Rally MEPs abstained from an October 2022 vote on the resolution calling on the European Commission to introduce a windfall profits tax on energy companies aimed at helping vulnerable households and small and medium-sized enterprises, including by capping energy prices.
They also opposed an amendment to extend the windfall profits tax to all business sectors.
The shadow rapporteur (the MEP in charge of negotiating compromises on behalf of his political group) on the Common Agricultural Policy, Gilles Lebreton proposed an amendment to delete the mention of environmental issues and aid for disadvantaged areas from the policy.
The amendment was ultimately rejected, but the Ecolobby website noted that it nevertheless illustrates that the National Rally claims to defend rural interests but is not, in fact, an advocate of a more progressive agricultural policy that would promote greater fairness in the agricultural world.
It also notes that the party has voted in favour of pesticides, building large agro-industrial facilities and against the ban on single-use disposable packaging in fast-food restaurants.
This article has been translated from the original version in French.
