Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.
Whether in Brussels or any other European capital, these days it’s impossible to have any discussion about France without reference to the risk of opposition leader Marine Le Pen’s presidency in 2027.
Europeanizing France’s nuclear deterrent? “But would Le Pen stand by it?” France’s long-term commitment to Ukraine? “Would Le Pen support it?” Enlargement? “She would oppose it.” Just as former U.S. President Donald Trump has been able to set the parameters of America’s foreign policy from outside the White House, there’s a risk that Le Pen will now be able to do the same for France — and the EU — from outside the Elysée.
There are several reasons to believe Le Pen might become president on her fourth attempt, the first of which has little to do with her and everything to do with the cantankerous, fickle nature of the French electorate.
Voters in France like to kick out incumbents. In 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron became the first president of the Fifth Republic — the first in 64 years — to be reelected without first losing control to the opposition in a parliamentary election.
Macron can’t run for office again, but by 2027, his centrist alliance will have been in power for a decade. Additionally, both the left and the old center right show no signs of producing a credible candidate. So, if the French electorate wants something new — as they usually do — Le Pen will be their only real option.
Moreover, Le Pen has spent the last two years saying and doing as little as possible while trying to look presidential — and will likely spend the next three years doing the same. And her 88 deputies in the National Assembly, under orders to look serious and say nothing too radical, have given her party a veneer of respectability.
More than that, the further rise of her National Rally (RN) party has achieved an air of inevitability. Few younger voters are incensed by the connections her family and party have with the collaborationist Vichy regime of 1940 to 1944.
Then, there’s Le Pen’s financial and political links with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would be a problem if the election was held now. And while they may still be a problem in 2027, even now they haven’t prevented her party from building an almost 10-point lead in the polls ahead of the European Parliament election in June.
The French public’s allegiance to the idea of Europe remains theoretically strong, but a passion for or a real understanding of the EU is weak — which is why Le Pen’s de facto policy of dismantling the bloc from the inside is poorly understood.
Le Pen’s “normalization” has been based on the successful deception that she’s now a moderate who wants to shift economic power and advantage toward ordinary citizens. But while her economic program continues to be interventionist and left wing, her social, European and international policies remain as ultra-nationalist as ever. And while a French parliament hostile to Le Pen could block many of her proposals, it’s unlikely it would be able to block all of them.
If elected, a Le Pen presidency would at best lead to five years of drift and confusion at home and in the EU capital. At worst, it could remove a nuclear power, G7 member and permanent member of the U.N. Security Council from the Western alliance, starting a process that could break the EU apart — at least in its current form.
For example, while Le Pen may have distanced herself from Putin since he invaded Ukraine, but she still says that France should reduce its “dependency” on Berlin and Washington. And though she says she’d remain in NATO, she’d fundamentally undermine Ukraine’s ability to ever join the alliance — as well as block the country from becoming an EU member.
Under Macron, France hasn’t distinguished itself in its arms supplies to Kyiv — its economic aid has been more generous. But if the war continues for another three years, under Le Pen, both might end.
Moreover, almost all of Le Pen’s economic program, and much of her social and migration policy, depends on breaking EU laws — something she doesn’t openly recognize, instead counting on the fact that many in France don’t know how the EU works.
As I’ve stated before, by a constitutional amendment, Le Pen would seek to make it possible to discriminate against foreign residents — including EU residents — on jobs, welfare and housing. She’d give preference to French business in all national and local government contracts, and give extra subsidies to French farmers. She’d reimpose checks at France’s land borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Spain. All of these policies would break EU laws on free movement and free trade, threatening to destroy the EU single market.
Le Pen also says she’d withhold part of France’s contribution to the EU budget. But under EU law, this is European money — not French money. And if implemented, these policies would bring legal action and financial retaliation from Brussels and domestic courts, which would cause a crisis of historic proportions in the EU.
At the center of Europe both politically and geographically, under Le Pen, France could find itself isolated — or the leader of a small group of dissident nations like Hungary. But an anti-EU Hungary or Slovakia is the equivalent of a sprained knee or elbow. An anti-EU France would be a disease in Europe’s heart and brain.