The French Revolution remade not only France but Europe, some 230-odd years ago. Even Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo was not really the end of what the rebellious Estates General had set in motion in 1789. The Revolution proved that an ancien régime could be overthrown and, once that was demonstrated, no king anywhere could feel completely safe. The Revolution continued as an ideological struggle long after the shooting ceased. Indeed, the world wars of the 20th century were arguably a late phase of the processes begun by the Revolution.
Now France faces a different kind of revolution: the prospect that Marine Le Pen will win next year’s presidential contest. Le Pen is considered absolutely haram by liberals everywhere, not only in her own country but throughout Europe. When the hard-right Austrian Freedom party shocked the world in 1999 by winning enough seats in parliament to make its leader, Jörg Haider, chancellor, Europe’s other heads of government responded by ostracizing Haider and his small nation. (Haider stepped aside and was never the country’s leader.) How will, say, Germany – which barely countenances a right-wing opposition party, Alternative für Deutschland, at home – respond if Le Pen takes power in France?
For now, the right can argue truthfully that its approach has never been tried
It’s clear enough how Europe’s political elites would like to deal with Le Pen, but it’s equally clear that France cannot be marginalized the way Austria was. Yet if she’s accepted, what excuse would Germany’s establishment leaders have for continuing to treat the AfD as untouchable? This is not to say that Le Pen and the AfD are entirely the same, only that both are unacceptable to those who have, until now, set the limits of permissible politics throughout the Continent. A Le Pen win also, of course, affords a precedent that might inspire Germany’s own voters to make AfD’s Alice Weidel the country’s next chancellor.
Europe’s post-Cold War ideological consensus could collapse very speedily indeed. If it does, the political spectrum will be redefined: what had been a right-wing fringe would now simply be the mainstream right, and the new fringe would have far more hardline views. Already Europe does not have the luxury that America’s immigration restrictionists enjoy – that of defining the problem largely in terms of illegal immigration and limiting the number of new legal immigrants accepted into the country.
In Europe, “remigration,” the expulsion of immigrant groups that are already in the country (including people born there), is a subject of growing discussion. A moderate, American-like policy is the more likely path a Le Pen would follow – indeed, the woman herself has criticized AfD for its talk of remigration. But if moderate restrictionist measures do not appear sufficient to prevent a repeat of riots like the ones France has experienced this fall, Le Pen may wind up challenged from her right.
And if a Le Pen victory emboldens German voters in their support for the AfD, it’s possible that an AfD government’s platform may in return inspire France to shift further to the right. Europe’s old-guard center-right parties faced a dilemma here: they are averse to cooperating with restrictionists of any kind, yet if they do not reinforce the relatively moderate restrictionists, they may be abetting the rise of figures they will find much less to their taste.
Up until now, the refusal of center-right parties and their voters to back hard-right leaders such as Le Pen has kept the latter out of power. Next year’s election may work out just as earlier campaigns have, with every other political faction in the country teaming up to deny Le Pen a victory in the second round. Yet if France’s establishment keeps Le Pen out of the Élysée Palace once again, they will hardly have averted their doom.
Emmanuel Macron was meant to be Europe’s – and the world’s – great hope for a new generation of popular, competent centrists. He’s proven to be neither popular nor competent. A hard leftist such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is currently Le Pen’s chief rival, would only drastically worsen all the maladies Macron’s technocratic touch was unable to cure.
The longer Europe delays its right-wing reckoning, the more dire conditions will be when a rightist finally does win. There is simply nothing on the horizon that can give new life to the liberal dispensation of the past three decades or more. Right-wing governments might also fail, but for now the right can argue truthfully that its approach has never been tried.
Britain’s situation is not as troubled as France’s or Germany’s, but the same dynamic is at work. Nigel Farage’s Reform party has a rival on its right in the shape of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain movement. Many Tories are pleased to see Lowe siphon support from Reform, but a scenario in which Reform is diminished and a harder right is nurtured is not necessarily going to end the way the Conservative party hopes. Instead of pushing voters back to the Conservatives, it may terrify some into fleeing to Labour, or farther left, while others – those on the right – tasting a hotter dish than Reform or the Tories dare serve, may come to relish it.
Europe’s right turn is unavoidable. It can be delayed only at the cost of making the turn much sharper when it happens. And liberals who thought history ended with them are now reliving the nightmare of France’s 19th-century legitimists, who struggled in vain to restore a lost world after the Revolution.
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