-Analysis-
PARIS — France's partners are concerned about the political situation in France. But not all of them... As fortune would have it, yesterday French President Emmanuel Macron received a visitor who is not unhappy about the far-right surge in France: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Hungary will take over the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1, and Orban is touring European capitals to prepare for the event.
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But the visit comes just three days before the first round of France's snap legislative elections, which could give Orban the opportunity to advance his political project. Orban, a confirmed Eurosceptic, has theorized the transformation of the European Union from within. He dreams of a union of the extreme right that could turn the tables, halt what he sees as the march towards federalism, block immigration and stop helping Ukraine.
No small thing
Last September, Marine Le Pen, of France's far right National Rally (RN) party, was in Budapest to meet Orban. Two years earlier, it was Eric Zemmour, leader of the other far-right party, Reconquête, who visited Hungary to express his "admiration."
But France's main partners are worried about this high-risk election. First, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has remained cautiously silent since Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, and has expressed his "concern." The Social Democrat publicly hoped "that parties other than Marine Le Pen's will win."
Berlin considers the RN to be "profoundly Germanophobe." French daily Le Monde reported yesterday that German officials fear that a far-right victory in France would plunge relations between the two countries "into their most serious crisis since the Second World War." That is no small thing.
French polarization
The polarization of the French vote also worries Germans, as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, is not soft on Germany either. In his 2015 book Bismarck's Herring, German Poison, he called for a "frank confrontation" with Germany. But German politicians and commentators have not equate the RN and LFI: they consider the real danger to be on the far right.
Most of the EU leaders who will be meeting with Macron in Brussels today and tomorrow for the European Council have a worst-case scenario in mind: a France that is at best paralyzed, and at worst, hostile to European integration. This comes as Europe is facing immense economic, technological and, of course, geopolitical challenges, with Russian President Vladimir Putin on one side, and the possible victory of Donald Trump on the other.
The continuity in Brussels does little to conceal the great fear that France might break the balance.
The Council of the EU’s 27 leaders is expected to approve the names of a trio of leaders: Ursula Von der Leyen, reappointed as president of the Commission, Portugal's António Costa as president of the Council, and Estonia's Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as head of diplomacy. A conservative, a social-democrat and a liberal, the same balance as before; despite the defeat of Macron's party in France, and far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's surge in Italy.
This apparent continuity does little to conceal the great fear that France, one of the main driving forces behind the European balance, might break it. That is not at the heart of the legislative campaign debates. Yet the consequences would be considerable.