Last week, Emmanuel Macron became the first French president for more than 40 years to make an official visit to the town of Vichy in order to speak about its history. His purpose was to counter an insidious historical revisionism which is casting a shadow over France’s presidential election campaign. The far-right television pundit Éric Zemmour, who announced his candidacy a fortnight ago, has claimed that the Vichy regime gave protection to French Jews during the second world war, a falsehood that has been denounced and debunked by historians. The bleak truth of the round-ups and persecution that took place, said Mr Macron, must not be “manipulated” or “revised” for political motives.
That this trip was felt to be necessary gives an indication of the disturbing extent to which extreme views are becoming normalised in French politics, where the centre of gravity has lurched to the right. Around 30% of French voters plan to cast their ballot next spring either for Mr Zemmour’s reactionary agenda or for Marine Le Pen. Denying Vichy’s crimes is part of a toxic nationalism which seeks to “save” French civilisation from the effects of immigration, and draws on white supremacist “replacement” theory to suggest that traditional French culture is under threat. To an alarming degree, this agenda has succeeded in setting the tone in the presidential race so far.
The extent to which that continues to be the case may depend on the candidate for the Gaullist Républicains party, Valérie Pécresse, who recently won her party’s primary. Ms Pécresse, who would be France’s first female president were she to defeat Mr Macron, hails from the moderate, centrist wing of her party and has enjoyed a notable bounce in the polls since her victory. In a second-round runoff with the president, predicted one survey of opinion, she would score a narrow win. But to reach the second round Ms Pécresse will need to defeat both Ms Le Pen and Mr Zemmour, in what promises to be a tight three-way race on the right.
In an effort to attract support away from both, and prevent defections from the more conservative wing of her own party, she has promised controversial constitutional reform to limit immigration and a referendum “on internal security and against Islamism”. In her victory speech she said she felt the “anger” of voters who felt culturally threatened by migration. Ms Pécresse’s closest rival in the primary race, Éric Ciotti, who has warned of a coming “war of civilisations” and called for a French “Guantánamo” for terror suspects, has been promised a central role in her campaign.
The electoral maths – and Mr Macron’s proven ability to win support from centrist former Républicains voters – means that Ms Pécresse may feel obliged to tack in this direction, in what is becoming a race to the bottom on xenophobic policies. But it is vital that France’s traditional centre-right party remains within the political mainstream, and does not succumb to what has been described as the “Zemmourisation” of French political debate.
This is all the more true given the disarray on the divided, failing French left, none of whose candidates have a realistic chance of reaching the second round runoff. Last week, the Socialist candidate for the presidency, Anne Hidalgo, suggested that if it could not unify behind a single candidate, the left risks becoming extinct as a political force. This is not a healthy state of affairs for one of the world’s most important liberal democracies. For her part, Ms Pécresse will naturally seek to navigate the most viable route to the Élysée in the spring. But as France swings right, it must be hoped that she does not sell her party’s soul in the process.
