Everybody should be scared, French or foreign, living in France or living elsewhere. Whether foreign residents of France have something special to fear is a trickier question.
Despite her claim to have de-toxified her father’s party, Le Pen launched the autumn phase of her presidential campaign with a slogan – “priorité nationale” – which goes back to the racist origins of her movement.
In a speech in her constituency in Hénin-Beaumont in northern France, she said that a Le Pen government would give French people precedence over foreigners in the allocation of public housing, jobs and welfare.
READ MORE: What would Le Pen's 'French preference' policy mean for foreigners in France?
She was careful to specify “French people whatever the colour of their skin.” She made no distinction between EU citizens and other foreign residents. She placed the emphasis on access to public housing but made it clear that national “priority” or “preference” would also apply to jobs and welfare payments.
None of this is new. There was similar language in her campaign manifestos in 2017 and 2022. The phrase “national priority” goes back to the earliest days of the Rassemblement National - then the Front National - under her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1970s. The words were adopted by Le Pen père as a way of appealing to racism without being crudely racist.
Marine Le Pen could have chosen other themes for her keynote post-summer speech. That she chose to be “nativist” - the new buzzword for ultra-nationalist or racist - is significant.
READ MORE: Are Le Pen's 'French preference' plans feasible or even legal?
It suggests that she plans to run a Trumpian campaign before the first round of the presidential election on April 18th. She will seek to excite, entertain and bamboozle her base rather than reach out to the swing voters that she will need to win Round Two on May 2nd.
She is so far ahead in the first-round polls - 15 points ahead of her nearest rival - that her victory in Round One seems already assured. It might have been sensible to prepare for the tougher task of the two-candidate run-off.
Instead she has doubled down on simplistic RN policies and slogans, from reducing the pension age to 62 (and 60 for some) to “les Français d’abord (French First). In part this is an unwillingness to abandon the lazy mental habits of opposition and prepare for government. In part, it is her way of distancing herself from her Number Two, Jordan |Bardella.
Relations between the RN top two have chilled since the appeal court ruling on July 7th which allowed Le Pen to push him aside and run for the presidency. Bardella is no moderate but he had grasped the need to reassure moderate voters.
So how worried should the 6,300,000 foreigners in France be?
About one in three are from European countries, according to the French statistics agency INSEE. Just under half are from Africa, mostly from Algeria and Morocco. About 200,000 are from Britain.
If we are to take Le Pen at her word, her government would try to push us to the back the queue for jobs, housing and welfare.
The RN economic programme for the 2022 campaign, which is still in force, says “nationality should become one of the criteria for hiring” except for “foreigners with rare skills”. This would apply to private sector jobs as well as jobs in government and local government.
In other words, employers would be legally bound to take a French job candidate over a foreigner.
Such a policy would be illegal and unconstitutional.
It would be illegal under European law which guarantees the free movement of EU citizens. It would be unconstitutional because the French constitution offers equality to all residents of France, not just the French ones.
If such laws were enacted in France, there would be a huge bust-up with Brussels. Legal action could be taken in French courts and eventually the European Court of Justice.
A Le Pen government might not care. It could take years for the cases to be tried.
Not so a ruling by the Constitutional Council in France. A decision striking down a French First law would be immediate and binding.
To go down the nativist road, the RN would have to change the Fifth Republic constitution to say that “in France French people are more equal than others”. To change the constitution, Le Pen would have to win a popular referendum (possible but unlikely) or get the votes of three-fifths of both houses of parliament sitting together (which would be very unlikely).
None of that is addressed in RN party policy or in the Le Pen speech this month. If attempted, “les Français d’abord” would consume the political energy and time needed for more pressing issues such as the budget deficit or rising unemployment.
It is my guess that if Le Pen is elected, such a policy would never become law. It could still cause great harm by stirring “nativist” anger against foreigners, judges, “elites” and Brussels. It might be applied illegally but in compliance with Le Pen’s wishes by some businesses, landlords and RN-controlled town halls.
As a policy, “French First” tells us little about the legal reality of a future Lepennist France and everything about its atmosphere.
For that reason alone, the six million have reason to fear.
Comments