In a further sign of the rise of the far right across Europe, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) has overtaken French president Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche! (LREM) party in a poll, reports The Independent.
The Ifop poll of voting intentions for the May 2019 European Parliament elections showed the RN rising from 17 per cent at the end of August to 21 per cent now, moving ahead of the LREM on 20 per cent for the first time.
The RN’s 21 per cent, combined with the 7 per cent of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan’s Debout La France (Stand up France) party and one per cent each for Florian Philippot’s Les Patriotes and François Asselineau’s pro-“Frexit” Popular Republican Union gave far-right parties a combined 30 per cent total.
This was up five percentage points from 25 per cent of voting intentions at the end of August.
Sunday’s poll provides striking evidence that France has shifted towards the far right since Macron easily beat Le Pen, leading what was then known as the Front National, in the second round of voting in the 2017 French presidential election.