The political temperature in France has reached boiling point since President Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision to call new elections. For Macron, it made sense after a disastrously poor result in the European Parliament elections at the beginning of June. His bet is fresh: He hopes most French people will once again turn their backs on the far right when it comes to the play. I, PRIME MINISTER: Jordan Bardella (28) hopes for a new job after the election on 7 July Photo: AFP But opinion polls show that he may lose so many votes that the far right’s new shooting star, Jordan Bardella, may become France’s next prime minister. The first round of elections will be held on Sunday. The second and decisive election round is one week later, on July 7. – It’s just terrifying Students Bas and Alexandra have no doubt about what is at stake. – This election determines our future. It’s just terrifying, says Bas when news meets him in a demonstration on the Place de la République in Paris. – Jordan Bardella as Prime Minister? It will be terrible. It will mean the end of humanism as a basic value in France. All the rights we have fought for will disappear, says Alexandra. PARIS COMMUNE 2: Students Bas and Alexandra draw historical inspiration for the rebellion they believe is necessary to stop the advance of the far right in France. The two are representative of an attitude that has characterized several generations of young people in France. One of the slogans repeated this evening in Paris reads as follows: La jeunesse emmerde le Front National. “The youth ask the National Front to go to hell”. It’s an old slogan taken from a punk song, at the time Jean-Marie Le Pen was the leader of one of Europe’s most prominent far-right parties. Since then, the party has changed its name to Rassemblement National, Nasjonal Samling. In Norwegian it hardly sounds less inflamed, but in French the idea was to be less confrontational. NO THANKS: The youth ask the National Front to go to hell, reads an old slogan. But the party has changed its name, and got a new, young figurehead. Photo: Simen Ekern With Marine Le Pen as leader, the party has succeeded in being seen more as a party in line with other parties, rather than a diabolical protest alternative. And while most young people may have asked the party to “go to hell” in the past, that is not quite the case anymore. Led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, the party reaches out to young voters to a completely different extent than before. Almost 2 million TikTok followers In a run-down garage in the Paris suburb of Drancy, four twenty-somethings are clearing away old leaflets and election posters. – They are from the European elections, so we no longer need them. We have to make room for the posters for the elections to the National Assembly, explains Enzo Marani. He is the youth leader of the National Assembly here in Drancy. Marani and his friends have no time to lose. FOR BARDELLA: Enzo Marani heads the National Assembly’s youth organization in the suburb of Drancy, where Jordan Bardella was born. Photo: Simen Ekern – Now we have a historic opportunity to take power. And to get Bardella as prime minister. Marani believes Jordan Bardella speaks to young French people in a completely new way. Bardella’s success is partly about the communication strategy. There are hardly any politicians in Europe who have a greater impact on social media. Bardella’s TikTok account is approaching 2 million followers. – He has understood the codes that the new generations expect, especially the very youngest. And he also makes it possible for young people to take an interest in politics, and thus go and vote, says Marani. At the same time, Bardella conveys the story of a young man who grew up in a burdened suburb, who has known the problems first hand, someone who knows what he is talking about. Marani believes it is crucial. Because the core message is clear: Nasjonal Samling is about immigration resistance and the fight against the crime the party links to immigration. BEFORE: Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie sing the French national anthem in 2009, when the party was called Front National. Enzo Marani believes that very few of his young party colleagues today have anything to do with the once controversial Jean-Marie Le Pen. Photo: REUTERS Both Marani and his comrades talk about the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 as a turning point for them. – When you are 15 years old and 130 people have died, most of them young, you are marked. Scared for life. And you want an end to it. So you get involved. And that’s what many do, says Marani. – Therefore, you can see that our ideas are gaining traction with the young. Young people who want order and authority Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus is one of France’s foremost experts on the rise of the far right. He well recognizes the reasoning of the group of friends in Drancy. – You often hear that young people love the multicultural society, that they are open to everyone, to globalization and so on. But that’s not the case at all! They may also feel fear because of it. ORDER: The new right-wing youth want order and authority, says Jean-Yves Camus. Camus talks about a divided youth generation. There are those who vote on the left, for the green, committed youth who fit in with the 68 generation’s image of what committed youth are like. And then you have the new young far-right voters. – These are the grandchildren of the 68s. And unlike the grandparents, and sometimes the parents, they want authority. They want order. They want to return to traditional family values. They also belong to the right in their view of economics, Camus believes. – In recent years, a lot has been about the fact that to be successful in life, you have to start your own business, create a start-up, become rich. They believe the answer to this recipe for success is to vote for the National Assembly, says Camus. Although Jordan Bardella has achieved a certain star status also among young girls, the political scientist explains that it is primarily young men who vote for the National Assembly. – For them, it’s about a protest against woke-ism, a protest against modern ideas about gender roles, and an emphasis on masculinity. A masculinity that feels threatened by immigration. Left about In Montreuil, another Paris suburb, the young social democrat Sami Hmissi has a quite different description of reality than the one Jordan Bardella is running on. He leads the Socialist Party’s youth organization in Seine Saint Denis, and believes Islamists and the far right reinforce each other. That they both attack the basic values of the French Republic. As he sees it, Bardella’s bleak descriptions of reality in the suburbs of Paris are wrong – and they make things worse. – Is there civil war in Saint-Denis? I was there just in the run-up to our election campaign after the European elections. I didn’t exactly have the impression that I wasn’t in France. It is a France Bardella does not want to see, it is something else, says Hmissi. OPTIMIST, DESPITE EVERYTHING: Sami Hmissi, leader of the Socialist Party’s youth organization in Seine Saint Denis. He is fed up with the debate about young men in masculinity crisis. – Politics is not about virility, dominance or violence. We do not live in the stone age. Yes, it is true that there is such a masculinity movement online. But it’s ridiculous, he says. – We have had major, important female politicians in France. Take one on the right: Simone Veil She was not masculine. She survived the holocaust. She was in the front row to fight the far right afterwards. That is courage. It’s courage that counts, and it has nothing to do with what you have between your legs. – Dangerous for us, and dangerous in Europe Hmissi also has a few things to say about Bardella’s storytelling about his own upbringing. – He has sold it everywhere. But honestly: Who can believe that Bardella has lived with the inhabitants of Saint-Denis? He has attended private schools. He stayed with his father in an elegant area as often as he could, he says. Sami Hmissi has by no means given up the fight for France’s youth. – It is not true that all young people now vote for the National Assembly. Today, the left is still the largest among young people. It is a fact. That must not be forgotten, he emphasizes. CLEAR MESSAGE: The writing on the wall is clear. How representative the assessment of the Rassemblement National (RN) is, France gets a clue on 30 June. – Jordan Bardella uses social media to say “I’m decent, I’m pretty, I smile, vote for me.”. But he never comes up with anything resembling a political project on social media, says Hmissi. – We have to explain to the voters that we are facing an enormous responsibility. That we can get Jordan Bardella as prime minister. It’s not a joke. It can happen now. That block on the far right is putting together now, is dangerous! Dangerous for us, and dangerous in Europe. This is how the election takes place 577 representatives to the French National Assembly are to be elected. The election takes place in two rounds. The first round is June 30. A candidate who gets a clear majority already wins in this round. If no one gets a majority, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the decisive duel, which will be held on 7 July. Here there is also an opening for a third candidate – if that person has received 12.5% or more of the votes in the first round of the election. Published 30.06.2024, at 08.18
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Jordan Bardella may become France’s next prime minister – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
