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      Macron Appears Ready to Tough Out France’s Pension Crisis

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      Amid protests in the streets and in Parliament, the French leader shows no sign of scrapping a law that raises the retirement age.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election program last year was short on detail. His mind seemed elsewhere, chiefly on the war in Ukraine. But on one thing he was clear: He would raise the retirement age in France to 65 from 62.“You will have to work progressively more,” he said during a debate in April 2022 with the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. She attacked the idea as “an absolutely unbearable injustice” that would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”France heard both candidates. Soon after, Mr. Macron was re-elected with 58.55 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.45 percent. It was a clear victory, and it was clear what Mr. Macron would do on the question of pensions.Yet his ramming the overhaul through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself culminated in turmoil, mayhem on the streets and two failed no-confidence votes against his government on Monday, even as polls have consistently shown about 65 percent of French people are opposed to raising the retirement age.Had they not heard him? Had they changed their minds? Had circumstances changed? Perhaps the answer lies, above all, in the nature of Mr. Macron’s victory, as he himself acknowledged on election night last year.Looking somber, speaking in an uncharacteristically flat monotone, Mr. Macron told a crowd of supporters in Paris: “I also know that a number of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas that I uphold, but to block the extreme right. I want to thank them and say that I am aware that I have obligations toward them in the years to come.”“Those ‘obligations’ could only be a promise to negotiate on major reforms,” Nicole Bacharan, a social scientist, said on Tuesday. “He did not negotiate, even with moderate union leaders. What I see now is Macron’s complete disconnection from the country.”Marine Le Pen, center, of the far-right National Rally party, says the pension plan would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOpposition parties on both the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law before the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution.“The goal,” said Thomas Ménagé of Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, “is to ensure that this text falls into the dustbin of history.”But the chances of that appear remote.After a long silence, Mr. Macron is set to address the turmoil on Wednesday. He will try to conciliate; he will, according to officials close to him, portray the current standoff as a battle between democratic institutions and the chaos of the street, orchestrated by the extreme left and slyly encouraged by the extreme right. He has decided to stick with his current government, led by Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, and he will not dissolve Parliament or call new elections, they say.In short, it seems Mr. Macron has decided to tough out the crisis, perhaps offering some blandishments on improving vocational high schools and broader on-the-job training. But certainly no apology appears to be forthcoming for using a legal tool, Article 49.3 of the Constitution, to avoid a full parliamentary vote on a change that has split the country. (Only the Senate, the upper house, voted to pass the bill this month.)This approach appears consistent with Mr. Macron’s chosen tactics on the pension overhaul. Since the debate with Ms. Le Pen 11 months ago, inflation has risen, energy prices have gone up, and the pressures, particularly on the poorer sectors of French society, have grown.French lawmakers held up protest placards after the result of the first no-confidence motion against the French government at the National Assembly on Monday.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersYet, while he has made some concessions, including setting the new retirement age at 64 rather than 65, Mr. Macron has remained remote from the rolling anger. Most conspicuously, and to many inexplicably, after the government consulted extensively with unions in the run-up to January, Mr. Macron has refused to negotiate with the powerful moderate union leader Laurent Berger, who had supported Mr. Macron’s earlier attempt at pension changes in 2019 but opposes him now.“Macron knows the economy better than he knows political psychology,” said Alain Duhamel, a political scientist. “And today, what you have is a generalized fury.”A large number of Macron voters, it is now clear, never wanted the retirement age raised. They heard Mr. Macron during the debate with Ms. Le Pen. They just did not loathe his idea enough to vote for a nationalist, anti-immigrant ideologue whose party was financed in part by Russian loans.Mr. Macron is adept at playing on such contradictions and divisions. Because his presidential term is limited, he is freer to do as he pleases. He knows three things: He will not be a candidate for re-election in 2027 because a third consecutive term is not permitted; the opposition in Parliament is strong but irreconcilably divided between the far left and extreme right; and there is a large, silent slice of French society that supports his pension overhaul.All this gives him room to maneuver even in his current difficult situation.When Mr. Macron opted last week for the 49.3 and the avoidance of a parliamentary vote, he explained his decision this way: “I consider that in the current state of affairs the financial and economic risks are too great.”Protesters in Nantes, in western France, on Tuesday.Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the face of it, speaking about risks to financial markets while pushing through an overhaul deeply resented by blue-collar and working-class French people seemed politically gauche. It appeared especially so at a moment when Mr. Macron was turning away from the full parliamentary vote his government had unanimously said it wanted.“Saying what he said about finance at that moment, in that context, was just dynamite,” said Ms. Bacharan.It was also an unmistakable wink to the powerful French private sector — with its world-class companies like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — and to the many affluent and middle-class French people who do not like the growing piles of uncollected garbage or the protests in the streets, and who view retirement at 62 as an unsustainable anomaly in a Europe where the retirement age has generally risen to 65 or higher.If Mr. Macron has cards to play, and perhaps broader support than is evident as protesters hurl insults at him day after day, his very disconnection may make it hard for him to judge the country’s mood.Last week, Aurore Bergé, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party in Parliament, wrote to Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, to request police protection for lawmakers.“I refuse to see representatives from my group, or any national lawmaker, afraid to express themselves, or to vote freely, because they are afraid of reprisals,” she said.It was a measure of the violent mood in France.“If we have had 15 Constitutions over the past two centuries, that means there have been 14 revolutions of various kinds,” Mr. Duhamel said. “There is an eruptive side to France that one should not ignore.”The National Assembly in Paris. Opposition parties on the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law. Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More

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      A Powerful Theory of Why the Far Right Is Thriving Across the Globe

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      As we approach the 2022 midterms, the outlook for American democracy doesn’t appear promising. An increasingly Trumpist, anti-democratic Republican Party is poised to take over at least one chamber of Congress. And the Democratic Party, facing an inflationary economy and with an unpopular president in office, looks helpless to stop them.But the United States isn’t alone in this regard. Over the course of 2022, Italy elected a far-right prime minister from a party with Fascist roots, a party founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads won the second-highest number of seats in Sweden’s Parliament, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary won its fourth consecutive election by a landslide, Marine Le Pen won 41 percent of the vote in the final round of France’s presidential elections and — just this past weekend — Jair Bolsonaro came dangerously close to winning re-election in Brazil.Why are these populist uprisings happening simultaneously, in countries with such diverse cultures, economies and political systems?[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Pippa Norris is a political scientist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she has taught for three decades. In that time, she’s written dozens of books on topics ranging from comparative political institutions to right-wing parties and the decline of religion. And in 2019 she and Ronald Inglehart published “Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism,” which gives the best explanation of the far right’s rise that I’ve read.We discuss what Norris calls the “silent revolution in cultural values” that has occurred across advanced democracies in recent decades, why the best predictor of support for populist parties is the generation people were born into, why the “transgressive aesthetic” of leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro is so central to their appeal, how demographic and cultural “tipping points” have produced conservative backlashes across the globe, the difference between “demand-side” and “supply-side” theories of populist uprising, the role that economic anxiety and insecurity play in fueling right-wing backlashes, why delivering economic benefits might not be enough for mainstream leaders to stave off populist challenges and more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Topjur01“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      Giorgia Meloni Leads Voting in Italy, in Breakthrough for Europe’s Hard Right

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      ROME — Italy appeared to turn a page of European history on Sunday by electing a hard-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, whose long record of bashing the European Union, international bankers and migrants has sown concern about the nation’s reliability in the Western alliance. Early projections based on a narrow sampling of precincts, as well as exit polls, on Sunday night suggested that Ms. Meloni, the leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the remnants of fascism, had led a right-wing coalition to a majority in Parliament, defeating a fractured left and a resurgent anti-establishment movement. The final results would not be clear until Monday, and it will still be weeks before the new Italian parliament is seated and a new government is formed, leaving plenty of time for political machinations. But Ms. Meloni’s strong showing, with about 25 percent of the vote, the highest of any single party, makes her the prohibitive favorite to become the country’s first female prime minister. While she is a strong supporter of Ukraine, her coalition partners deeply admire Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have criticized sanctions against Russia.“From the Italians has arrived a clear indication,” Ms. Meloni, known for her crescendoing rhetoric and cult of personality, said in a measured victory speech at nearly 3 a.m., “for the center-right to guide Italy.”After saying she had suffered through a “violent electoral campaign” filled with unfair attacks, Ms. Meloni spoke about “reciprocal respect” and recreating “trust in the institutions.” She posed flashing a victory sign. “We are at the starting point,” she said, adding, “Italy chose us, and we will never betray it.”The victory, in an election with lower turnout than usual, comes as formerly taboo and marginalized parties with Nazi or fascist heritages are entering the mainstream — and winning elections — across Europe. This month, a hard-right group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads became the largest party in Sweden’s likely governing coalition. In France this year, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen — for a second consecutive time — reached the final round of presidential elections. In Spain, the hard-right Vox, a party closely aligned with Ms. Meloni, is surging.But it is Italy, the birthplace of fascism and a founding member of the European Union, that has sent the strongest shock wave across the continent after a period of European-centric stability led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who directed hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds to modernize Italy and helped lead Europe’s strong response to Russia. Giorgia Meloni preparing to cast her vote at a polling station in Rome on Sunday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“This is a sad day for the country,” Debora Serracchiani, a leader of the Democratic Party, which will now lead the opposition, said in a statement early Monday morning.Ms. Meloni’s victory showed that the allure of nationalism — of which she is a strong advocate — remained undimmed, despite the breakthroughs by E.U. nations in coming together to pool sovereignty and resources in recent years, first to combat the coronavirus pandemic and then Mr. Putin’s initiation of the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.How, and how deeply, a right-wing coalition in Italy led by Ms. Meloni could threaten that cohesion is now the foremost concern of the European establishment.Ms. Meloni has staunchly, and consistently, supported Ukraine and its right to defend itself against Russian aggression. But her coalition partners — Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of the League, and the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — have clearly aligned themselves with Mr. Putin, questioning sanctions and echoing his propaganda. That fracture, and the bitter competition between the right-wing leaders, could prove fatal for the coalition, leading to a short-lived government. But some political analysts say Ms. Meloni, having attained power, may be tempted to soften her support for sanctions, which are unpopular in much of Italy. If she does, there is concern that Italy could be the weak link that breaks the European Union’s strong united position against Russia.Ms. Meloni had spent the campaign seeking to reassure an international audience that her support of Ukraine was unwavering. She sought to allay concerns by condemning Mussolini, whom she once admired, and Italy’s Fascist past. She also made more supportive noises about Italy’s place in the European Union and distanced herself from Ms. Le Pen and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom she had previously emulated. But that pivoting was more for international markets than Italian voters, who didn’t much care about her past, or even her affinity for illiberal democracies. The Italian electorate had not moved to the right, political scientists said, but instead again resorted to a perennial desire for a new leader who could possibly, and providentially, solve all its ills. Ms. Meloni found herself in the right place at the right time. Hers was virtually the only major party to remain outside Mr. Draghi’s national unity government, allowing her to soak up an increasing share of the opposition. Her support surged from 4 percent to nearly about 25 percent.After a revolt by a party in Mr. Draghi’s broad unity government in July, the right-wing parties, eager to go to elections they were favored to win, sensed opportunity and bolted, with Ms. Meloni in the pole position.There is little concern in the Italian establishment that she will undermine Italian democracy — she has been a consistent advocate for elections during unelected technocratic governments and has long served in Parliament. There is also a widespread belief that Italy’s dependence on hundreds of billions of euros in relief funds from the European Union will force Ms. Meloni and her government to follow the spending plans, reforms and overall blueprint established by Mr. Draghi. The money comes in tranches and the plans have to meet strict criteria. If she reverses course, Italy could lose out on billions of essentially free euros as rising energy prices and inflation — much of it stemming from the sanctions against Russia — are expected to worsen in coming months.Giorgia Meloni, addressing supporters during a rally in Piazza Duomo in Milan earlier this month.Piero Cruciatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut there is concern about Ms. Meloni’s lack of experience and her party’s lack of technical expertise, especially in running the eurozone’s third-largest economy, and Mr. Draghi has kept in close touch with her, both to ensure her support for Ukraine and, insiders say, to help find someone who can provide economic continuity.Nevertheless, Ms. Meloni represents a historic break at the top of Italian government. She came of political age in a post-Fascist, hard right that sought to redefine itself by seizing on new symbols and texts, especially “The Lord of the Rings” and other works by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien, to distance itself from the taboos of Fascism. She grew up with a single mother in a working-class area of Rome, and being a woman, and mother, has been central to her political identity. She once ran for mayor while pregnant because she said powerful men had told her she couldn’t. Her most famous speech includes the refrain “I am a woman. I am a mother.” Being a woman has also distinguished her, and marked a major shift, from her coalition partners, especially Mr. Berlusconi, the subject of endless sex scandals.But Ms. Meloni, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Salvini share a hard-right vision for the country. Ms. Meloni has called for a naval blockade against migrants and spread fears about a “great replacement” of native Italians. The three share populist proposals for deep tax cuts that economists fear would inflate Italy’s already enormous debt, and a traditionalist view of the family that liberals worry will at least freeze in place gay rights and which could, in practice, roll back abortion rights.Despite the constraints of an Italian Constitution that is explicitly anti-Fascist and designed to stymie the rise of another Mussolini, many liberals are now worried that the right-wing coalition will erode the country’s norms. There was concern that if the coalition were to win two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, it would have the ability to change the Constitution to increase government powers. From left to right, Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi, and Giorgia Meloni attending the final rally of the center-right coalition in Rome on Thursday.Alessandra Tarantino/Associated PressOn Thursday, during one of Ms. Meloni’s final rallies before the election, she exclaimed that “if the Italians give us the numbers to do it, we will.”But the coalition appeared not to hit that mark. The main party of the left, the Democratic Party, all but guaranteed its defeat by failing to heal its differences with other liberal and centrist parties, including a new group of moderates. The moderates, backed by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and attracting some former leaders of Mr. Berlusconi’s party, who were disillusioned with his following of the hard right, did better than expected, but still seemed to remain in the single digits.What really held the right back from a landslide were their former governing partners, the Five Star Movement, the once anti-establishment movement that triggered the collapse of Mr. Draghi’s government when it revolted in July.In 2018, the party’s burn-down-the-elite rhetoric led it to become the country’s most popular party and largest force in Parliament. Years of governing — first with the hard-right Mr. Salvini, and then with the Democratic Party, and then under Mr. Draghi — exposed its incompetence and infighting and it imploded. It seemed on the brink of extinction. But during the campaign, led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, the party surged in the country’s underserved south.That development was mainly because Five Star passed a broad unemployment benefit known as the “citizen’s income,” which though roundly criticized by moderates and the right as a handout to the lazy and a disincentive to work, has become a cherished benefit.As a result, Five Star appeared to be becoming the party of the south.“This is what is emerging,” said Angelo Tofalo, himself a southerner and a leader in the party, as he cheered Mr. Conte, at a rally in Rome on Friday. He said the party had laid down deep roots in the south, but acknowledged, “the citizen’s income is a factor.”That unexpected strength ate into Ms. Meloni’s support, while she devoured the backing of the League party of Mr. Salvini. Only years ago he was the country’s most popular populist. Now he appeared to sink to single digits. Mr. Berlusconi, once the hinge upon which the coalition turned, and who legitimized the marginalized post-Fascists and secessionist League in the 1990s, also registered a modest result.But together they had enough to govern and Ms. Meloni had the clearest claim on the office of prime minister during negotiations and consultations with Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, which will take place over the next month. The new government is likely to be seated in late October or early November.But the message of the end of a period of European taboos, and of new change, has already been sent.Ms. Meloni said in one of her last interviews before the election that her victory would be “a redemption” for all the people who “for decades had to keep their heads down” and who had an “alternative vision from the mainstream of the system of power.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Macron Adjusts His Cabinet, Seeking a Fresh Start

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      The new appointments by President Emmanuel Macron of France are unlikely to help him push his agenda through a fragmented lower house of Parliament.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron of France lightly shuffled his cabinet on Monday in a bid to jump start his second term, weeks after elections that significantly weakened his parliamentary majority and bolstered his political opponents.Mr. Macron, who has been occupied by international summits and diplomatic efforts over the war in Ukraine, and who has not yet charted a strong domestic course for his second term, is now seeking a fresh start after his alliance of centrist parties lost its absolute majority last month in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament.After those elections, Mr. Macron had asked Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, to consult with parliamentary groups to form “a new government of action” that could include representatives from across the political landscape, and Ms. Borne spent much of the past week meeting with party leaders.But the new appointments on Monday were not as sweeping as that might have suggested, and the shuffle contained no major surprises, meaning that the new government will probably not make it easier for Mr. Macron to get his bills passed in France’s fragmented lower house.Mr. Macron, speaking to his newly appointed ministers on Monday for his cabinet’s first meeting, said he wanted a government of “ambition,” capable of building “challenging compromises.” “Our country needs reforms, transformations,” Mr. Macron said, as he blamed mainstream opposition parties for their “unwillingness” to take part in his government. Ms. Borne and many heavyweights who were appointed in May after Mr. Macron’s re-election remained in place, including Bruno Le Maire, who has been in charge of the economy since Mr. Macron was first elected in 2017; Pap Ndiaye, an academic of Senegalese and French descent who is education minister; and Catherine Colonna and Sébastien Lecornu, the ministers for foreign affairs and defense.Olivier Véran, who in May had been nominated minister in charge of relations with Parliament, was appointed government spokesman on Monday. Mr. Véran, a neurologist by training, was health minister at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mr. Macron’s first term and was the face for much of the government’s response, making him one of the administration’s most recognizable figures.Olivier Véran, who in May had been nominated minister in charge of relations with Parliament, was appointed government spokesman.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Véran, speaking to reporters before taking up his post on Monday, said that “more than ever, the political context calls for transparency, for dialogue, for renewal” to address the “feeling of disconnection” between French people and their politicians.“Each day, on each bill, we will have to constantly seek majorities, not just with lawmakers with also with a majority of the French,” Mr. Véran said.Mr. Macron had vowed ahead of June’s parliamentary elections that any ministers who were running for a seat would have to resign if they lost. Three were in that situation, including Brigitte Bourguignon, the health minister, who was replaced Monday by François Braun, an emergency doctor and the head of an umbrella organization of France’s emergency departments. Mr. Braun had recently been assigned by the government to find solutions to summer staff shortages that have plagued French hospitals.The new appointments hinted at Mr. Macron’s need to bolster support from his allied centrist parties: the MoDem, a longtime partner of Mr. Macron, and Horizons, a group created by Édouard Philippe, his former prime minister. Six cabinet positions were filled by members of those parties on Monday, up from two previously.But Mr. Macron did not poach any key targets from left or right-wing parties, as he had several times in the past, and he even brought back officials who had been in his cabinet in his first term, leading opponents to suggest that Mr. Macron had a very shallow bench from which to choose.François Braun, an emergency physician, replaced Brigitte Bourguignon as the health minister.Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesPierre-Henri Dumont, the deputy secretary general for Les Républicains, Mr. Macron’s right-wing opposition, told the BFMTV news channel on Monday that the new government “looks more like the end of a reign than the start of a new term.”“No one major was poached, there are no big names, even though we were promised a government of national unity,” Mr. Dumont said.Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party — which won a record number of seats in Parliament last month — said on Twitter that Mr. Macron had “once again ignored the verdict of the ballot box and the French people’s wish for a new policy.”Mr. Macron declined to reappoint Damien Abad, the minister for solidarity and for disabled people, who has faced a growing number of sexual assault and rape allegations since his nomination in May.At least three different women have made accusations against Mr. Abad, who has strenuously denied wrongdoing, and the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation targeting him last week, amid a growing reckoning over sexism and sexual abuse by French political figures.Mr. Abad said at a news conference on Monday that faced with “vile aspersions,” it was preferable for him to step down “so that I may defend myself without hampering the government’s action.”Laurence Boone, the chief economist at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is the new junior minister in charge of European affairs, replacing Clément Beaune, a key ally of Mr. Macron, who will become the minister in charge of transportation.The cabinet reshuffle came ahead of a general policy speech that Ms. Borne is expected to give before the lower house on Wednesday.Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne had been asked to consult with parliamentary groups to form “a new government of action.” Christophe Petit Tesson/Pool via ReutersThe speech is an important tradition that gives prime ministers an opportunity to set out the new government’s policies and priorities, but it is not automatically followed by a confidence vote. Prime minister have usually sought one anyway to shore up support and give their cabinet a strong mandate, but it was still unclear if Ms. Borne would do so. France Unbowed, the main left-wing opposition party in the National Assembly, has already said it would call for a no-confidence vote against Ms. Borne to try to force her to step down. But such a vote can only succeed if the left, the far-right and the mainstream conservatives vote together, which is far from certain. One of the new government’s first orders of business will be a bill that aims to help the French keep up with inflation by increasing several welfare benefits, capping rising rents, and creating subsidies for poorer households to buy essential food products.Inflation in the eurozone rose to a record 8.6 percent last week, as the fallout of the war in Ukraine and the economic conflict it has set off between Russia and Western Europe continued to drive up energy prices — although France’s inflation rate, at 6.5 percent, is comparatively lower than in other European countries. More

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      France’s Far Right Surges Into Parliament, and Further Into the Mainstream

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      Marine Le Pen’s National Rally now has a place of power in the political establishment and a chance to prove itself in the eyes of voters.PARIS — In 2017, after the far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her allies won only a handful of seats in parliamentary elections, she blamed France’s two-round voting system for shutting her party out of Parliament despite getting over one million ballots cast in its favor.“We are eight,” she said bitterly, referring to the seats won by her party in the National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament. “In my opinion we are worth 80.”Fast-forward to last week’s parliamentary elections. The voting system hasn’t changed, but with 89 newly elected lawmakers — an all-time record for her party, currently known as the National Rally — Ms. Le Pen is now beaming.On Wednesday, she hugged her new colleagues, kissing cheeks left and right, before leading them into the National Assembly and posing for a group picture. “You’ll see that we are going to get a lot of work done, with great competence, with seriousness,” Ms. Le Pen told a scrum of television cameras and microphones. In contrast with “what you usually say about us,” she pointedly told the gathered reporters.For decades, dogged by its unsavory past and doubts over its ability to effectively govern, the French far right failed to make much headway in local and national elections even as it captured the anger of France’s disillusioned and dissatisfied. Most recently, President Emmanuel Macron defeated Ms. Le Pen in April’s presidential race.Supporters listening to a campaign speech by Ms. Le Pen in Stiring-Wendel, France, in April. For decades, the French far right failed to make much headway in local and national elections, even as it captured the anger of France’s disillusioned and dissatisfied.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut the National Rally surged spectacularly in the parliamentary election last weekend, capping Ms. Le Pen’s yearslong quest for respectability as she tries to sanitize her party’s image, project an air of competence and put a softer face on her resolutely nationalist and anti-immigrant platform.Fueled by anger against Mr. Macron and enabled by the collapse of the “republican front” that mainstream parties and voters traditionally erected against the far right, the results came as a shock even within the National Rally’s own ranks.“I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t surprised,” said Philippe Olivier, Ms. Le Pen’s brother-in-law and special adviser, who described the 89 seats secured by the party in the 577-seat National Assembly as “a tidal wave.”The National Rally is now the second largest party in Parliament behind that of Mr. Macron, who lost his absolute majority and is now struggling to cobble together enough lawmakers to pass his bills, potentially forcing him to work with a reinvigorated opposition.In an interview with the news agency Agence France-Presse on Saturday, Mr. Macron said he had asked Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to consult with parliamentary groups to form “a new government of action” that will be named early next month.He added that the new government could include representatives from across the political landscape, with the exception of the hard-left party France Unbowed and Ms. Le Pen’s party, which he said he did not consider to be “parties of government.”The National Rally does not have enough lawmakers to push through its own bills and will struggle to find allies in Parliament. But thanks to increased public funding based on its election results, the haul of seats is a financial boon for the heavily indebted party.Crucially, for the first time since the 1980s, it has enough seats to form a parliamentary group — the only way to get leverage in the lower house.The National Rally is now the second largest party in Parliament behind that of Mr. Macron, who lost his absolute majority and is now struggling to cobble together enough lawmakers to pass his bills.James Hill for The New York TimesNational Rally lawmakers can now bring a no-confidence vote, ask for a law to be reviewed by the Constitutional Council, create special investigative committees, fill top parliamentary jobs and use a new wealth of speaking time and amending power to push and prod the government and slow or block the legislative process.“During the previous term, there was a two-day debate on immigration,” Mr. Olivier recalled. “We had five minutes of speaking time!”Ms. Le Pen has said that her party will ask for positions that are traditionally allocated to opposition groups, including the vice presidency of the National Assembly and the leadership of the powerful finance committee, which oversees the state budget.Analysts say this established presence in Parliament could further anchor the far right in France’s political landscape, providing an invaluable launching pad for future elections.“I think Marine Le Pen understands that this is really the final test,” said Jean-Yves Camus, co-director of the Observatory of Radical Politics at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a progressive research institute.Many voters, even those who might agree with her proposals, still question her party’s capabilities, Mr. Camus noted. Now, he said, she will try to show that, like other far-right populist parties in Europe, her party can harness institutional machinery from the inside, instead of railing against it from the outside.Mr. Olivier said that his party would try to push through legislation on its favorite themes, including lowering value-added taxes on energy and essential goods, drastically reducing immigration and increasing police powers. But he said his party would also be “a constructive opposition,” not a “troublemaker.”“If Macron proposes a bill on nuclear power, we will vote for it,” he said. “If a bill goes in the right direction, we will study it.”Migrants waiting to be allocated emergency housing by a nonprofit group in Paris last year. The far right wants to lower sales taxes on energy and essential goods, drastically reduce immigration and increase police powers.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen has engaged in a long and deliberate strategy to “undemonize” her party and widen her electorate. Since her defeat by Mr. Macron in 2017, she has tried to foster her credibility and rebrand her party away from its extremist roots.Many of the new far-right lawmakers came to politics during this makeover era and learned the ropes as city councilors or parliamentary assistants who tried to project rigorousness and break with the excesses of some of the party’s longtime lieutenants, who were often associated with antisemitism and xenophobia.“A bit of new blood and some new faces won’t hurt,” Bryan Masson, who captured a seat in the Alpes-Maritimes area of southern France, told BFM TV last Monday. At 25, he is one of Parliament’s youngest members, after a decade of activism for the National Rally, first as a leader of its local youth branch and then as a regional councilor.Ms. Le Pen also has dropped ideas that alienated mainstream voters, such as a proposal to leave the eurozone, which helped her to get 41.5 percent of the vote in April’s presidential election, an eight-point increase from 2017.That was not enough to defeat Mr. Macron, who called for a “republican front,” a longtime strategy in which mainstream voters put political differences aside to support anyone but the far right in runoff votes.That front has weakened in recent years, however, and last week it appeared to collapse, amid the growing polarization in French politics around three strongly opposed blocs: Mr. Macron’s broad, pro-globalization center, the far right and the hard left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed.Last weekend, the National Rally won half of its runoff matches against candidates from an alliance of parties supporting Mr. Macron, compared with less than one in 10 in the previous legislative elections.Many in Mr. Macron’s party put the far right on near-equal footing with Mr. Mélenchon’s leftist coalition, saying both were extreme, prompting half of the president’s supporters to abstain in runoffs pitting the National Rally against the left, according to a recent poll.Newly elected lawmakers from the far-right National Rally party visiting the National Assembly on Wednesday, in Paris.Christophe Ena/Associated PressSimilarly, the left-wing alliance said that “not a single vote” should go to the far right, but it did not encourage voters to back Mr. Macron’s alliance, leading many supporters to stay home.Gilles Ivaldi, of the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po in Paris, said the far right had surfed on the wave of resentment against Mr. Macron’s pro-business policies and his perceived arrogance, as many voters wanted mainly to punish the president.“These legislative elections looked a lot like midterms,” he said, despite being held barely two months after Mr. Macron’s re-election victory.But the National Rally’s new presence in Parliament is a double-edged sword, analysts say.Ms. Le Pen has to manage a delicate balancing act that entails “being almost completely normalized while remaining transgressive,” Mr. Camus said, as the party fully joins a political system it had long castigated as inefficient and corrupt.“What brought voters to the National Rally was that they were an anti-establishment party,” he added.Now, they are at the establishment’s heart. 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      France’s Far-Right Surges into Parliament, and Further into the Mainstream

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      Marine Le Pen’s National Rally now has a place of power in the political establishment and a chance to prove itself in the eyes of voters.PARIS — In 2017, after the far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her allies won only a handful of seats in parliamentary elections, she blamed France’s two-round voting system for shutting her party out of Parliament despite getting over 1 million ballots cast in its favor.“We are 8,” she said bitterly, referring to the seats won by her party in the National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament. “In my opinion we are worth 80.”Fast-forward to last week’s parliamentary elections. The voting system hasn’t changed, but with 89 newly elected lawmakers — an all-time record for her party, currently known as the National Rally — Ms. Le Pen is now beaming.On Wednesday, she hugged her new colleagues, kissing cheeks left and right, before leading them into the National Assembly and posing for a group picture. “You’ll see that we are going to get a lot of work done, with great competence, with seriousness,” Ms. Le Pen told a scrum of television cameras and microphones. In contrast with “what you usually say about us,” she pointedly told the gathered reporters.For decades, dogged by its unsavory past and doubts over its ability to effectively govern, the French far right failed to make much headway in local and national elections even as it captured the anger of France’s disillusioned and dissatisfied. Most recently, President Emmanuel Macron defeated Ms. Le Pen in April’s presidential race.Supporters listening to a campaign speech by Ms. Le Pen in Stiring-Wendel, France, in April. For decades, the French far right failed to make much headway in local and national elections, even as it captured the anger of France’s disillusioned and dissatisfied.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut the National Rally surged spectacularly in the parliamentary election last weekend, capping Ms. Le Pen’s yearslong quest for respectability as she tries to sanitize her party’s image, project an air of competence, and put a softer face on her resolutely nationalist and anti-immigrant platform.Fueled by anger against Mr. Macron and enabled by the collapse of the “republican front” that mainstream parties and voters traditionally erected against the far right, Sunday’s results came as a shock even within the National Rally’s own ranks.“I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t surprised,” said Philippe Olivier, Ms. Le Pen’s brother-in-law and special adviser, who described the 89 seats secured by the party in the 577-seat National Assembly as “a tidal wave.”The National Rally is now the second largest party in Parliament behind that of Mr. Macron, who lost his absolute majority and is now struggling to cobble together enough lawmakers to pass his bills, potentially forcing him to work with a reinvigorated opposition.In an interview with the news agency Agence France-Presse on Saturday, Mr. Macron said he had asked prime minister Élisabeth Borne to conduct consultations with parliamentary groups to form “a new government of action” that will be named in early July.He added that the new government could include representatives from across the political landscape, with the exception of the hard-left France Unbowed party and Ms. Le Pen’s party, which he said he did not consider to be “parties of government.”The National Rally does not have enough lawmakers to push through its own bills and will struggle to find allies in Parliament. But thanks to increased public funding based on its election results, the haul of seats is a financial boon for the heavily indebted party.Crucially, for the first time since the 1980s, it has enough seats to form a parliamentary group — the only way to get leverage in the lower house.The National Rally is now the second largest party in Parliament behind that of Mr. Macron, who lost his absolute majority and is now struggling to cobble together enough lawmakers to pass his bills.James Hill for The New York TimesNational Rally lawmakers can now bring a no-confidence vote, ask for a law to be reviewed by the Constitutional Council, create special investigative committees, fill top parliamentary jobs, and use a new wealth of speaking time and amending power to push and prod the government and slow or block the legislative process.“During the previous term, there was a two-day debate on immigration,” Mr. Olivier recalled. “We had five minutes of speaking time!”Ms. Le Pen has said that her party would ask for positions that are traditionally allocated to opposition groups, including the vice presidency of the National Assembly and the chair of the powerful finance committee, which oversees the state budget.Analysts say this established presence in Parliament could further anchor the far-right in France’s political landscape, providing an invaluable launching pad for future elections.“I think Marine Le Pen understands that this is really the final test,” said Jean-Yves Camus, co-director of the Observatory of Radical Politics at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a progressive research institute.Many voters, even those who might agree with her proposals, still question her party’s capabilities, Mr. Camus noted. Now, he said, she will try to show that like other far-right populist parties in Europe, her party can harness institutional machinery from the inside, instead of railing against it from the outside.Mr. Olivier said that his party would try to push through legislation on its favorite themes, including lowering value-added taxes on energy and essential goods, drastically reducing immigration, and increasing police powers. But he said his party would also be “a constructive opposition,” not a “troublemaker.”“If Macron proposes a bill on nuclear power, we will vote for it,” he said. “If a bill goes in the right direction, we will study it.”Migrants waiting to be allocated emergency accommodation by a nonprofit organization in Paris last year. The far right wants to lower sales taxes on energy and essential goods, drastically reduce immigration, and increase police powers.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen has engaged in a long and deliberate strategy to “undemonize” her party and widen her electorate. Since her defeat by Mr. Macron in 2017, she has tried to foster her credibility and rebrand her party away from its extremist roots.Many of the new far-right lawmakers came to politics during this makeover era and learned the ropes as city councilors or parliamentary assistants who tried to project rigorousness and break with the excesses of some of the party’s longtime lieutenants, who were often associated with antisemitism and xenophobia.“A bit of new blood and some new faces won’t hurt,” Bryan Masson, who captured a seat in the Alpes-Maritimes area of southern France, told BFM TV on Monday. At 25, he is one of Parliament’s youngest members, after a decade of activism for the National Rally, first as a leader of its local youth branch and then as a regional councilor.Ms. Le Pen also has dropped ideas that alienated mainstream voters, such as a proposal to leave the eurozone, which helped her to get 41.5 percent of the vote in April’s presidential election, an eight-point increase from 2017.That was not enough to defeat Mr. Macron, who called for a “republican front,” a longtime strategy in which mainstream voters put political differences aside to support anyone but the far right in runoff votes.That front has weakened in recent years, however, and last week it appeared to collapse, amid the growing polarization in French politics around three strongly opposed blocs — Mr. Macron’s broad, pro-globalization center, the far right, and the hard left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party.Last weekend, the National Rally won half of its runoff matches against candidates from an alliance of parties supporting Mr. Macron, compared to less than one in 10 in the previous legislative elections.Many in Mr. Macron’s party put the far right on near equal footing with Mr. Mélenchon’s leftist coalition, saying both were extreme, prompting half of the president’s supporters to abstain in runoffs pitting the National Rally against the left, according to a recent poll.Newly elected lawmakers from the far-right National Rally party visiting the National Assembly on Wednesday, in Paris.Christophe Ena/Associated PressSimilarly, the left-wing alliance said that “not a single vote” should go to the far right, but it did not encourage voters to back Mr. Macron’s alliance, leading many supporters to stay home.Gilles Ivaldi, of the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po in Paris, said the far right had surfed on the wave of resentment against Mr. Macron’s pro-business policies and his perceived arrogance, as many voters wanted mainly to punish the president.“These legislative elections looked a lot like midterms,” he said, despite being held barely two months after Mr. Macron’s re-election victory.But the National Rally’s new presence in Parliament is a double-edged sword, analysts say.Ms. Le Pen has to manage a delicate balancing act that entails “being almost completely normalized while remaining transgressive,” Mr. Camus said, as the party fully joins a political system it had long castigated as inefficient and corrupt.“What brought voters to the National Rally was that they were an anti-establishment party,” he added.Now, they are at the establishment’s heart. 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      France’s Far Right Wins Record Number of Seats in Parliament

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      PARIS — The French far right was projected to win a record number of seats in the election on Sunday, which could make it the third biggest political force in Parliament. It will also secure enough seats to form a parliamentary group for the first time since the 1980s, reflecting its solid political foothold and highlighting the success of Marine Le Pen’s longtime efforts to moderate her party’s image.Ms. Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, was expected to win between 75 and 100 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, according to preliminary projections. The party needs to secure only 15 seats to become a parliamentary group, a designation that would give it more public funding and speaking time, and specific legislative powers such as creating special committees.That result came despite a lackluster legislative campaign by Ms. Le Pen.After her loss to Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election in April, Ms. Le Pen all but disappeared from the political stage, resurfacing only in May to acknowledge on television that Mr. Macron would most likely secure a majority in Parliament — indirectly conceding defeat in advance.For several weeks, the National Rally campaigned without any real leadership, failing to drive the public debate around its favorite themes of economic insecurity, immigration and crime. Instead, much of the momentum has been with a coalition of left-wing parties that managed to overtake the far right as the main opposition force to Mr. Macron.Still, Ms. Le Pen’s party secured about 19 percent of the vote in the first round of the parliamentary elections last week, about a six-point increase from five years ago, allowing 208 of its candidates to advance to a runoff, up from 120 in 2017.And the seats the National Rally was expected to capture on Sunday will be a significant increase from the eight seats it currently holds.“This group will be by far the largest in the history of our political family,” Ms. Le Pen said in a speech on Sunday.She added that her party had achieved the three objectives it had set itself: to prevent Mr. Macron from securing an absolute majority; to continue restructuring France’s political landscape; and to build a strong opposition group.Forming an official group in Parliament is crucial for the National Rally, which has long struggled financially, and will help raise its profile. The last time the far right secured such a group was when Jean-Marie Le Pen, Ms. Le Pen’s father, led 35 lawmakers into Parliament in 1986.The legislative elections this month have also cemented Ms. Le Pen’s overwhelming dominance on the right of the political spectrum. Éric Zemmour, a far-right pundit and her main competitor during the presidential election, was knocked out in the first round, as were all of his party’s candidates. More