Why more and more young French people are voting for the far right
In the 1980s, a French punk rock band created a rallying cry against the country’s far right that has retained its power for decades. The slogan, still chanted at left-wing rallies, is “La jeunesse emmerde le Front National,” which doesn’t translate well without swearing, but essentially tells the far right to go away.
That thing crude battle cry is emblematic of what has long been conventional wisdom, not just in France but elsewhere—that young people tend to lean left in politics. Now that notion has been challenged as more and more young people join French voters in supporting the National Congress, a party once considered too radical to govern.
Results from Sunday’s parliamentary vote, the first in a two-part election, showed that young people across the political spectrum turned out in much larger numbers than in previous years. The vast majority voted for the left. But one of the biggest jumps was in the estimated number of 18- to 24-year-olds who voted for the National Rally, in an election that many say could reshape France.
According to a quarter of the age group voted for the party a recent poll according to the Ifop polling institute, up from 12 percent two years ago.
There is no reason for such a dramatic change. The National Rally has tried to clean up its image, for example by ousting openly anti-Semites who share the deep-seated prejudices of the movement’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen. And the party’s anti-immigration platform resonates with some who see what they see as uncontrolled migration as a problem.
The party also benefits from the passage of time; many of the young people who supported the congress were toddlers, or not even born, when Mr Le Pen was elected. France was shocked by making it to the 2002 presidential election.
And the National Rally has been smart to pick a new face: Jordan Bardella, a charismatic 28-year-old with an impressive TikTok following, who took over as president from Mr. Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, in 2022. He has helped clean up the party’s racist image while pushing for preferential treatment for French citizens over legal migrants.
“We come from a generation that never knew Jean-Marie Le Pen,” said Enzo Marano, 23, head of the local National Rally youth branch, who recently handed out party flyers in a Paris suburb. “We are the Bardella generation.”
Mr. Bardella, analysts say, embodies the final stages of National Rally’s decades-long efforts to rebrand — leveraged social media to reach young voters and repurposed his message into a compelling social media campaign centered around him.
Focusing on Mr Bardella is an important tactic for the party, whose founders include former Nazi collaborators and some members remain under fire for racist or anti-Semitic comments.
“When you talk more about a political party, you have to talk about the history and ideology of that party,” said Laurent Lardeux, a sociologist at the National Institute for Youth and Popular Education. But when the campaign focuses on a single person, he added, “you can put ideology aside and talk more about personality, posture—that’s branding and communication.”
That strategy, combined with growing anger against President Emmanuel Macron, appears to have worked so far. The National Rally defeated Mr Macron’s party in the recent European parliamentary elections, a poor showing that prompted him to call early elections for the French parliament.
But his gamble that the country would swing back to the centre appears to have failed as the National Rally Party also dominated that election, which will go to a run-off to win most of the seats this weekend.
The rising popularity of the far right has worried the left, which remains the choice of most young voters. The New Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, won 42 percent of the vote among 18- to 24-year-olds on Sunday, more than any other group, according to Ifop.
Left-wing activists are now trying to get people to vote in Sunday’s run-off election.
“We have no other choice,” Amadou Ka, a candidate for the New Popular Front, said recently while campaigning in Creil, a town about 30 miles north of Paris.
Participation among 18- to 24-year-olds jumped to 56 percent in the first round of voting, up from 25 percent in 2022according to Ifop.
Analysts say young people are more likely to vote when there is a lot at stake, as was the case in this election, which could bring the National Party to power for the first time. If it wins an absolute majority, Mr Macron would be forced to appoint Mr Bardella as prime minister, giving him control of domestic policy.
For right-wing supporters, this is the great opportunity of the National Convention.
“We are on the threshold of power,” Mr. Marano said while handing out campaign literature.
Some were openly hostile, crumpling up leaflets and angrily referring to the party’s anti-Semitic and racist past. “To me, this is fascism,” said one elderly man in broken French, pointing to a leaflet showing a smiling Mr Bardella.
Olivier Galland, a sociologist at the National Center for Scientific Research, said Mr Bardella appealed to young working-class voters, many in rural areas, who often struggle to secure stable jobs.
“Bardella represents a segment of French youth that is being forgotten by traditional politicians,” he said.
Noah Ludon, 19, a history student who attended the National Congress this month, said he sympathized with Mr. Bardella because they both grew up in middle-class families in a Paris suburb with a large immigrant population.
“I don’t feel at home anymore,” Mr. Ludon said, referring to the influx of migrants. “It has become difficult to find a French butcher.” When asked to clarify, he said he meant a non-halal butcher.
Mr Ludon, who said his mother was attacked in a supermarket car park, said crime was also a major concern.
Such statements reflect Mr. Bardella’s views, shared with his more than 1.8 million followers on TikTok. While other French politicians are also on TikTok, Mr. Bardella is known for being particularly smarmy and getting more likes and comments than other politicians—even those like Mr. Macron, who have more followers.
“He’s good at balancing serious and light-hearted content, surfing trends, showing his personal side,” said Marie Guyomarc’h, a spokesperson for Visibrain, a social media analytics company. “He’s not the only one,” she added, “but he’s the only one where it works.”
Many of Mr. Bardella’s videos deal with classic far-right topics like crime and immigration. But other clips have little to do with policy.
IN some Mr. Bardella’s most popular video, he was referring to the fake collage videos that toyed with the notion that he and Gabriel Attal, Mr. Macron’s prime minister, were secretly in a relationship — a winking response to his followers that he knew what they were posting and had a sense of humor about it. On social media, he also referenced video game Call of Duty, in which, according to a profile on Le Mondehe used to play as a teenager
In other words, he is one of them.
It is that friendliness and the far-right agenda he is trying to humanize that has frightened many young people from immigrant backgrounds or ethnic minority groups.
Rania Daki, 21, a student and activist who grew up in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris, said that as a child, she was terrified when she heard Ms. Le Pen mentioned — she recalled that far-right supporters often said it in whispers.
“Now, it has become completely normal,” said Ms. Daki.
She and two friends wrote an open letter in the newspaper Libération urged working-class neighborhoods to vote and went door-to-door to get the message across.
But she said reaching out was difficult. Many young people said they were disillusioned by politics. Others said they did not follow the news.
Concerns about discrimination and police brutality are particularly strong in places where she has campaigned. The National Rally wants to create a mandatory “presumption of self-defense” for law enforcement, which activists fear would make it harder to hold officers accountable for police violence that often targets people of color.
So when the far-right vote share appeared on television screens on Sunday in offices Ghett’upA community organization in the multicultural Paris suburb of Saint-Denis let out a sigh.
“Even before the results came out, people were being attacked, insulted and spat at,” said Mariam Touré, 22, a law student and community activist who attended the event. Her family fled the civil war in Ivory Coast in 2003 and arrived in France in 2009.
“They will never erase us from the political landscape,” Ms. Touré defiantly told the crowd. “At the same time,” she added, her voice cracking, “I am very scared.”
