Michel Barnier Is in Office, Marine Le Pen Will Hold Power

As results poured in from the first round of France’s elections on June 30, veteran Gaullist politician Michel Barnier sounded the alarm. His Les Républicains seemed faced for a debacle, with under 7 percent of the vote. Ahead of the election, the party had suffered a damaging split, as a noisy minority made an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN). Barnier opposed their position — but likewise warned against the left-wing danger to the Republic.

In the second round, he insisted, it was necessary “to build a barrage against both LFI [Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing France Insoumise] and the RN.” This contravened the established idea of a “republican front” uniting democrats against the far right. Yet in dozens of constituencies, the runoffs on July 7 offered a straight contest between France Insoumise and Le Pen’s RN. In those races, Les Républicains’ voters split in favor of the far-right option, by an estimated 38 to 26 percent. No longer considering it a pariah, they backed it even against the more center-left Greens and Socialists.

These Les Républicains voters were too few to give Le Pen a majority. Most left-wingers (and just over half of centrists) voted tactically to block her party, and surprised expectations that it was coasting toward power. Ultimately, the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire scored 192 seats, Emmanuel Macron’s camp 166, and Le Pen’s allies only 142, in a deeply divided parliament. Yet the president soon gave the far right the initiative again — handing it a kingmaker role that culminated this Thursday in Barnier’s appointment as prime minister.

While the president last week ruled out a government led by the left-wing alliance, his consultations with Le Pen in effect sought her approval before a new broad-right administration could form. Le Pen threatened “no-confidence” votes on potential candidates who might make deals with the center-left, or even a…