France is becoming more and more right-wing, according to a leading liberal think tank in the country. The report from Fondapol (the Foundation for Political Innovation) examined the results of last year’s presidential and legislative elections, as well as in-depth polling data taken around the same time. Its conclusion: the French are getting angrier — and their anger is making them more right-wing.

It is a sign of malaise, decline and the disenchantment

Any Francophiles hoping for a conservative renaissance in l’Hexagone shouldn’t hold their breath: the right-ification of France is not the result of a positive re-evaluation of an intellectual and political tradition that has deep roots in France. Rather, it is a sign of malaise, decline and the disenchantment of the French with the structures of their society, as well as dissatisfaction with the results of their rulers’ sway. According to Fondapol, this expresses itself in three ways: not bothering to vote, spoiling your ballot if you do vote, or voting for “protest” candidates of the far right and far left against the candidates of the political class.

Establishment poster-boy Emmanuel Macron won 58 per cent of the vote in the final round of last year’s presidential contest, but the combined votes of Marine Le Pen, far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and right-wing upstart Eric Zemmour amounted to an overall majority in the first round. The think tank’s survey found that 47 per cent of Macron voters in the first round were on the right, meaning that 53 per cent of French active voters are right-wing. When Fondapol added in Macron voters who share at least some right-wing values, the figure climbed to 57 per cent of French voters.

If the two-round system gives Macron a comfortable personal mandate in the presidential vote, it rests on unfirm foundations — as the legislative elections a month later showed. Fondapol’s report points out that adding abstentions and spoiled ballots to the votes for protest parties in the 2022 legislative elections shows a whopping 77 per cent of the French electorate are against the political establishment.

The constitution of the Fifth Republic was designed to destroy the rule of the parties which de Gaulle argued led to weak and indecisive governments in the Third and Fourth republics. The first half-century of this enduring constitution mostly forged a middle way: voters consolidated into larger political parties — Gaullists, Socialists, Communists and the middle-right of liberals and rural conservatives — whilst the need for tenuous parliamentary coalitions was eradicated by the broader division of power between a strong presidency and an almost viceregal prime minister.

De Gaulle’s unique genius was to concoct through charisma, dignity and hauteur an electoral alliance that, whilst its primary support came from centre-right voters, nonetheless included a diverse array of traditions. Conservatives, monarchists, bourgeois and moneyed interests were joined by some socialists, modernisers, liberals and others unified by the Gaullist mystique transcending the political divide. Former ministerial adviser Pierre Manenti has well documented what the General’s leftist adherents brought to the table in his history of “social Gaullism” published last year.

Chirac’s tenure in the Elysée palace, whilst not without its victories, planted a seed of liberalism which has choked out the more traditional Gaullism. Catholic essayist François Huguenin went so far as to question whether Chirac was even a Gaullist at all. Undoubtedly, the more conventionally right-liberal the Gaullist party has become, the more it has declined — a phenomenon echoed by Christian Democratic parties in neighbouring European states. Sarkozy’s cringeworthy rebranding of the party as “the Republicans” was only a further sign of degaullification in a country known for its steadfast (if somewhat performative) resistance to American cultural influence. The General would not have been amused — but then he did once say that France had “the stupidest right in the world”.

The historian and political scientist René Rémond classified France’s right according to three distinct tendencies: Legitimist (after supporters of the Bourbon dynasty), Orléanist (supporters of the July monarchy) and Bonapartist. Rémond argued these tendencies did not strictly adhere to their historical definition but might better be thought of broadly as conservatives, liberals and populists.

The French are turning against the left more than they are for the right

It is tempting, but wrong, to think of Macron as an example of the Bonapartist strain in French politics. Despite the parallel of a personal appeal and a claim to transcend the left-right divide, Macron’s policies have been strictly liberal-Orléanist, reflecting his background as an investment banker. His reforms have been a damp squib — nothing like the epoch-making scale of Napoleon, nor the comprehensive restructuring and re-invigoration achieved by de Gaulle. “Abolishing” the elite École nationale d’administration (whose graduates dominate the civil services) turned out to be little more than a name change, whilst his suppression of the corps of regional prefects across France, and of the diplomatic corps’ distinct identity, have eliminated bodies whose pride and dignity added to the ineffable glamour of the French state.

One of the most intriguing findings of Fondapol’s study is that 17 per cent of voters for the two most extreme left-wing parties (LO & NPA) view Marine Le Pen as “far left” herself (13 per cent view her as “left” and 9 per cent as “centre”). More broadly, a third of voters close to left-wing parties viewed the arrival of Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in the National Assembly as “a good thing”. Amongst all voters, Le Pen also has the highest favourability ratings at 36 per cent, with 54 per cent viewing her unfavourably. Compare this to Mélenchon’s 61 per cent unfavourable rating (to 28 per cent favourable), and we can see the French are turning against the left more than they are for the right.

What is the future for France’s right more broadly? Napoleon, as Michael Broers has pointed out, was skilled at ralliement and amalgame — the game of rallying and incorporating disparate elements into a unified purpose. On the overall right today, there are only two leaders of any note: Le Pen and Zemmour. The official Gaullists continue to keep the General’s flame alive, but there is no one among les Républicains who has de Gaulle’s dexterity, experience, legitimacy or attraction.

The candidates who put themselves forward for the presidential nomination were uninspiring. Brexit bad boy Michel Barnier has a reputation for moderation but ran a strongly anti-immigration campaign and supported the return of capital punishment. Xavier Bertrand was another moderate who swung to the right, opposing same-sex civil marriage (resistance to which was larger in France than pretty much anywhere else). Valerie Pécresse was the opposite: she came from the right of the party but moderated her views and became the Republicans’ candidate for the presidency. Perhaps the common factor is that voters weren’t certain whether the views or policies that candidates put forward were the ones they actually believed in.

De Gaulle described his project as reconciling the left to the nation and the right to the republic. That there is no deep-seated desire for fundamental constitutional reform, is testament to his ability to turn that vision into a reality. Whilst the structure of France’s political institutions may be sound, Fondapol’s report makes clear that the country’s establishment is unable to govern in a way that resonates with the desires and needs of the French people. How this circle can be squared is a difficult question.

“The most common error of all statesmen,” de Gaulle argued, “is to firmly believe there is at any one moment a solution to every problem.”

“In some periods, there are problems to which no solutions exist.”