Le Pen’s Foreign Policy Pitch
The French presidential election showdown between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen puts the country at a crossroads on foreign policy. And though Macron still holds an edge, a Le Pen victory is well within range, and the National Rally leader knows it.
Today, Le Pen will take questions from the press on her foreign policy positions as she seeks to cast herself as a presidential alternative. So, how would a Le Pen presidency change France’s posture toward the world?
As in 2017 and now, Le Pen’s focus has mainly centered on domestic concerns, leaving foreign policy often as an afterthought. “Her foreign policy, to me, is either obscure or changeable, depending on the circumstances,” Phillipe Le Corre, a former French government official and non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Foreign Policy.
Le Corre cited two examples: Le Pen was in favor of ditching the euro currency in the last election (she now wants to keep it), campaigning this month, she said she had “partly changed” her mind on Russian President Vladimir Putin following his “indefensible” decision to invade Ukraine.
French voters don’t seem to care. She (along with Macron and the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon) gained support in the first round of France’s presidential contest compared to 2017, in a campaign that has hinged on domestic issues, with the cost of living at the forefront.
While Le Pen is difficult to pin down, there are some aspects to her international outlook that have remained constant, and which diverge markedly from her rival Macron.
The EU and NATO. “There are really concrete policy reforms that Macron has in mind to strengthen the EU and use it as a vehicle for French interests. Le Pen is the exact opposite,” Martin Quencez, the deputy director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund, told FP.
Although not an outright proponent of “Frexit,” Le Pen has been critical of the constraints EU law would put on her agenda. Like her fellow right-wingers in Poland, Le Pen takes issue with the primacy of EU law, arguing the French constitution should come first. Her views on border controls would come in direct confrontation with the EU’s freedom of movement principles, as would her support for protectionist policies in support of French workers.
On NATO, Le Pen shares the view of her third-placed challenger, Mélenchon, that France would be better off without the treaty alliance, so that France would “be no longer caught up in conflicts that are not ours.”
Ukraine. A Le Pen presidency would likely see France become a spoiler when it comes to Europe’s largely unified response to the war in Ukraine. “She would probably go further than Viktor Orban and in fact block some of the decisions in Brussels that have to do with Ukraine,” Quencez said
Like Hungary’s newly reelected prime minister, Le Pen has been outspoken on European weapons transfers, saying that sending weapons into Ukraine risked turning France into a co-belligerent in the war (not necessarily a unique position seeing as that was Germany’s stance up until a few weeks ago).
The rising right. Like the victory of Donald Trump in 2016, a Le Pen win would show the strength of right-wing leaders globally and give Europe’s odd ones out—Poland and Hungary—a major champion. (The ideological connections have their own transatlantic flavor: the usually U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, will hold its May conference in Budapest, with Orban as keynote speaker).
But as with almost everything, the war in Ukraine has upended old dynamics on the European right. Le Pen may still find common ground with Orban, but in Poland it will be a different story. “It will be difficult for Le Pen to find an ally in Warsaw. The invasion has changed all that,” Quencez added.
No matter how large the alliance, Le Pen’s arrival at the Elysée Palace would be valuable for authoritarians outside the EU. From Putin’s point of view, from Xi Jinping’s point of view, having this kind of leader might be good news,” Carnegie’s Le Corre said. “Putin’s been working to destabilize Europe for the past ten years or so. Anything would do.”
But can she win? With polls currently predicting a narrow Macron win, Le Pen has a complicated route to victory. Much will depend on the disposition of Mélenchon voters, who, according to a recent poll, would mostly rather not vote at all in the second round; 44 percent say they plan to abstain, 33 percent say they would vote for Macron, while the remaining 23 percent would go for Le Pen. Macron has already begun the courtship by softening his positions on retirement reform.
By focusing so much of his campaign to date on foreign policy in a bid to demonize Le Pen’s links with Putin, Macron may himself be showing some naiveté, and keeping opportunities open for the right-wing leader. “I’m personally a bit concerned by the fact that the Macron campaign is so focused on foreign policy right now,” GMF’s Quencez said. “They thought the connection between Le Pen and Putin would be enough to make him the only credible candidate. But look at the polls, the priority for French voters is inflation, it’s rising prices.”