France’s far-right National Rally (RN) has its best chance yet of clinching power in a second round of legislative elections on July 7, running on a platform that proposes restricting the rights of immigrants and dual nationals. The party’s surge is in step with a broader rise in racism and xenophobia, spurred by the preeminence of far-right ideas in public debate.
A firefighter chased out of a building near Lille to cries of, “This is France, out with the Arabs”; a bakery in Avignon sprayed with racist and homophobic slogans, and then set on fire, for employing an Ivorian apprentice; a teenager beaten and almost drowned in a canal near Nîmes by four men yelling, “Go back to Jihad City”; a shopkeeper in Perpignan summoned, in a letter, to “leave for Africa” before her neighbourhood is “mercilessly cleansed”; a bus driver in a Paris suburb assaulted and run over by man shouting: “I’m tired of people like you, Bougnoules (derogatory term for Arabs) and Blacks – I vote National Rally, I’ll kill you, I’ll massacre you, I’ll eradicate you.”
These are but a few of the dozens of racist attacks documented by local media in France in the three weeks of chaotic and often virulent campaigning that preceded France’s two-round legislative elections, which saw Marine Le Pen’s National Rally top a first round of voting on June 30 on the back of its triumph in European elections earlier in the month.
In another such incident, Karim Rissouli, a journalist for public broadcaster France 5, read out a threatening letter he received at his home, informing him that he had failed to heed the message from voters in the European polls.
“The fundamental reason for the RN vote is that the historic people of France are sick and tired of Bicots,” the letter read, using a racist term to refer to people of North African descent. “Native Frenchmen will never accept you and your brothers.”
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Such attacks reflect a loosening of tongues at the prospect of a far-right party coming to power in France for the first time since the Nazi era, said the anti-racism watchdog SOS Racisme, whose birth in the 1980s coincided with the rise to prominence of the previously named Front National.
“With the rise of the far right, we’re witnessing an explosion in racist attacks, not only verbal but also physical,” said SOS Racisme in remarks carried by Mediapart. “We are dealing with people who think that if the RN comes to power, they will have institutional support to behave in this way,” added its president, Dominique Sopo.
‘Too many immigrants’
The lightning campaign, triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s startling decision to dissolve the National Assembly, has exacerbated a broader rise in prejudice and racist attacks documented by France’s Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme (CNCDH), a state-backed human rights watchdog.
In its annual report published on June 27, the CNCDH flagged a 32% spike in racist attacks in 2023 and a record rise in anti-Semitic incidents – the latter attributed in large part to the fallout from the war in Gaza.
Citing a “significant deterioration in the perception of immigration”, the CNCDH said its tolerance index, which measures society’s openness to diversity, had slipped for the second year running – this time sharply – after years of steadily rising.
The report said 56% of people surveyed believe “there are too many immigrants in France”, up 7% from the level measured in spring 2022. A similar number, 51%, said they “don’t feel at home like they used to”, up 3% from the previous year.
The CNCDH spoke of a shift from the “biological racism” of old to a “more cultural, identity-based form”, centred on the “purported inability of immigrants and foreigners to conform themselves with the norms and values of the Republic.”
The survey found that 54% of National Rally supporters and a quarter of those who backed the conservative Les Républicains party described themselves as racist. It described RN’s platform as being in “frontal opposition to the principles of equality, fraternity and freedom” enshrined in the French constitution, warning that it would embolden racist opinions.
Sponsoring prejudice
Speaking to French daily Le Monde, sociologist Vincent Tiberj, who co-authored the report, spoke of a “collision” between a broad societal trend towards greater acceptance of diversity and a more recent spike in identity politics.
He pointed to a discrepancy between a broad majority of the population that remains open to diversity and an increasingly vocal and mobilised minority that is hostile towards immigrants and foreigners.
Sociologist Tristan Guerra, head of research at the think tank Destin Commun, highlighted the role of political leaders and the media in shaping the political narrative and fostering a climate of fear and intolerance.
“Public opinion responds to signals coming from the media and from politicians,” he said, pointing to a growing emphasis on the subject of immigration. “The far right is not alone in stirring controversy on this subject,” he added. “So have the mainstream right and the government, which have helped normalise the far right’s ideas.”
Guerra cited acrimonious debates surrounding a hardline immigration law passed with support from RN lawmakers in late 2023, noting that the months of wrangling on the subject coincided with the period when the CNCDH carried out its survey. Those debates came on the heels of massive urban riots that roiled the country over the summer, and as news channels gave blanket coverage to the fallout from the tragic death of a teenage boy attending a village dance in southern France, which the far right sought to portray, without evidence, as a hate crime targeting white people.
“Our research confirms that most people in France are largely open to diversity and cherish a certain form of multiculturalism. They are also largely aware that racism is a problem and needs to be fought back,” said Guerra. “But when politicians and parts of the media actively sponsor prejudice, it can reactivate dormant attitudes and encourage intolerant reactions.”
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More French than others
Staunchly anti-immigrant and broadly hostile towards France’s Muslims, Le Pen’s party has succeeded in placing the subject of immigration at the crossroads of French voters’ top concerns, such as purchasing power, housing and crime, while also nurturing the idea that the French state is neglecting native French citizens.
“The focus used to be on immigrants supposedly ‘stealing’ French people’s jobs, but unemployment has dropped in recent years even as other crises have become more acute,” said Guerra. “The talk now is of immigrants enjoying priority access to social housing and benefits – which is not borne out by evidence.”
According to the CNCDH report, some 60% of people agree with the suggestion that “many immigrants come to France primarily to benefit from social security”. While 43% think that insecurity is mainly due to immigration, the number shoots up to 83% among RN supporters.
Asked whether “foreigners should have the same rights as French people”, only 52% said yes, a five-point drop from the previous year. The study also said 23% of people surveyed believe “the children of immigrants born in France are not really French”, up from 21.4% the previous year.
Jordan Bardella, RN’s candidate for prime minister, has confirmed the party’s plans to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality to work in some defence, security and nuclear-industry jobs – a move critics say would be unconstitutional. Rights groups say the discriminatory measure signals the party’s intention to sort people by nationality or background.
In the run-up to the July 7 runoffs, RN lawmaker Daniel Grenon, who is standing for reelection in Burgundy, caused outrage by declaring that the likes of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a former education minister who was born in Morocco and raised in France, had “no place holding high positions”.
‘A Jew as ophthalmologist’
Denon is hardly the only RN candidate facing scrutiny as the party stands on the threshold of power. Other questionable entries include a woman who has pulled from the high-stakes race over a photo of her wearing a World War II-era Nazi officer’s cap and another who wrote on social media that “gas brought justice to the victims of the Shoah”.
Asked about allegations that the party still has xenophobes and racists in its ranks, RN candidate Paule Veyre de Soras responded that it no longer did, before adding: “I myself am Catalan, my grandfather was born in Barcelona, I have a Jew as an ophthalmologist and, as a dentist, a Muslim.”
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Tolerance of minorities also declined in 2023, according to the CNCDH report, dropping from 59 (out of 100) to 57 in the case of Muslims, and from 72 to 68 for Jews – a sharp fall attributed to the ongoing war in Gaza, which has resulted in a massive increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported by French authorities and a variety of monitors.
There too, the report highlighted deep-seated prejudice regarding Jews’ purported double allegiance, with 42% of people surveyed stating that “Israel matters more to French Jews than France”.
On Wednesday, renowned Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld reiterated his advice that voters faced with a duel between Le Pen’s National Rally and the hard-left La France insoumise (LFI) should choose the far right – despite the long history of racism and anti-Semitism in the party co-founded by Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie, a convicted Holocaust denier. In an interview with AP, he accused the left-wing party of despising Israel and harbouring “anti-Semitic overtones”, a claim LFI vehemently denies.
The advice from Klarsfeld, an 88-year-old Jewish historian, goes against many other Jewish leaders and intellectuals in France who see fighting the National Rally as a top priority in Sunday's runoff vote.
In its report, the CNCDH flagged “the existence of anti-Semitism on the left, particularly the hard left”, though adding that it “bears no comparison with that observed on the far right and among people close to the National Rally”.
