France
The story
France's president wields more power than any other Western European head of state, and the electorate has consistently given strong support to movements at both political extremes.
1920–2017 · The Communist Party's long dominance of the left
The French Communist Party (PCF), founded in 1920, was for decades one of the few Western European far-left parties to outperform its mainstream socialist rival — it became the country's largest party outright in 1956, the first time that had happened in Western Europe. Isolated from government from 1947 over its Soviet ties, it briefly returned as a minor partner under Mitterrand in 1981, then again in 1997–2002 under Robert Hue's reforms. Its support has since faded into successive electoral coalitions.
2008–2024 · Mélenchon and France Unbowed
Jean-Luc Mélenchon left the Socialist Party in 2008 and, via the Left Front, built France Unbowed (LFI) into the PCF's successor as the dominant far-left force — reaching around 20 percent in both the 2017 and 2022 presidential races. LFI is populist and radically leftist on economics, moderate on social issues, softly eurosceptic, and wants France to withdraw from NATO's integrated military command; Mélenchon has defended Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and once praised Venezuela's government, while criticising Putin only after 2022. LFI's refusal in 2023 to call Hamas's attack on Israel terrorism contributed to the collapse of NUPES. After Macron dissolved the National Assembly in 2024, the left regrouped as the New Popular Front (NFP), which won the most seats but remained far short of a majority.
1972–2011 · Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front
Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the National Front (FN) in 1972 from a merger of small extreme-right groups, following in the "tax revolt dressed up as political rebellion" tradition of Pierre Poujade, under whose banner Le Pen was elected in 1956, at 27 the youngest member of the National Assembly. The FN broke through in 1983–84 local and European elections, then shocked France in 2002 when Le Pen reached the presidential runoff, prompting a mass mobilisation across the political spectrum behind incumbent Jacques Chirac.
2011– · Marine Le Pen's National Rally
Marine Le Pen took over from her father in 2011, launched a "de-demonisation" campaign, eventually expelled him from the party he founded, and renamed it National Rally (RN) in 2018. She has pulled RN's economics from the neoliberal right toward strong welfare-state positions while softening its social conservatism — the party split internally when the National Assembly constitutionalised abortion rights in 2024. Anti-immigration politics remain central, framed as an existential threat to French identity, and RN capitalised heavily on pandemic-restriction backlash. Though never in government, it has reshaped mainstream politics: the establishment right has followed its lead on immigration for two decades with diminishing electoral returns of its own.
RN won 89 seats in 2022 and 31.4% and 30 seats in the 2024 European election, but tactical withdrawals in the snap election denied it a plurality. In 2025 Le Pen was convicted over misuse of European Parliament funds; in July 2026 an appeals court cut her ban to 45 months (30 suspended), clearing her to run in 2027. The 2026 municipal elections brought uneven gains and the first local deals with the established right.
2022-2024 · RECONQUÊTE: THE CHALLENGE FROM THE RIGHT
Reconquête, founded by journalist Éric Zemmour for the 2022 presidential election, positioned itself to the right of Marine Le Pen. It pursues extreme cuts in immigration, mass deportations and “de-Islamisation”, promotes the “Great Replacement” theory, and is more market-oriented and hard eurosceptic than RN. Zemmour won just over seven percent in 2022, and the party gained five MEPs in 2024 under Marion Maréchal, who then broke with him to cooperate with RN, leaving it weakened.
EP elections
The National Front entered the EP in 1984 and co-founded Europe's first far-right group with Italy's MSI; after a series of short-lived groupings, RN was the dominant force in Identity and Democracy until 2024, when it co-founded Patriots for Europe, with Bardella as group president. PCF was a mainstay of the EP's far-left group from 1979 but lost all representation in 2019 as LFI took its place; in 2024 LFI won 9.9% and nine seats, and Reconquête 5.5% and five.
LFI
France Unbowed
- Economics Left
- Social issues Moderate
- EU Soft euroscepticism
- Authoritarianism Medium
RN
National Rally
- Economics Centre
- Social issues Conservative
- EU Soft euroscepticism
- Authoritarianism Medium
R!
Reconquête
- Economics Right
- Social issues Conservative
- EU Hard euroscepticism
- Authoritarianism High