Far right charts irresistible rise in France’s conservative heartlands

SABLÉ-SUR-SARTHE, France — Sylvie Casenave-Péré has been in politics for exactly 10 days and she is already in the thick of France’s election race against a high-profile adversary.

The 65-year-old packaging executive is running for a seat in parliament with President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals. That pits her directly against Marie-Caroline Le Pen, the sister of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose far-right National Rally party is on the ascendant.

On a quiet Monday morning in the small town of Sablé-sur-Sarthe, some 250 kilometers west of Paris, Casenave-Péré is handing out leaflets and greeting shoppers with gusto: “Send me to the National Assembly, I’m super motivated!”

This new recruit is part of a desperate push from Macron’s centrist coalition to hold back the tide of the far right in the region of Sarthe in the two-round snap election on June 30 and July 7.

For many years, Sarthe was seen as a rock-steady bastion of center-right conservatism. Just north of the Loire Valley, it is a land of rolling hills and stately medieval churches, and was the stronghold of François Fillon, prime minister from 2007 to 2012, whose presidential aspirations were torpedoed by a corruption conviction.

The political climate is shifting, however, and the National Rally is making inroads, partly on the back of growing grievances over a rural-urban divide. Many villages have seen better days, shops have closed, and investment and businesses have moved away.

And Sarthe is one of the many rural constituencies that might send far-right representatives to the National Assembly for the first time.

Home advantage?

Still, Casenave-Péré was undaunted about taking on a household name, insisting she — unlike Marie-Caroline Le Pen — was the local candidate in a region where that still counted.

“I pity her, she has been sent here but she doesn’t know the region, it’s a snub against the Sarthe residents,” she said.

Believing in her home-grown appeal, Casenave-Péré had no qualms about taking up the nomination, despite it being a last-minute scramble — Macron’s shock snap election announcement came on June 9, as it became clear his party was trounced by the National Rally in the EU election.

“They called me on the eve of the deadline for candidacies, and asked me whether I wanted to run [for the National Assembly], so I said yes,” she said. Though the constituency had “been traumatized” by “the disasters of the right,” she hoped voters would recognize her local roots.

Nothing can be taken for granted, however.

Marie-Caroline Le Pen, the sister of the far-right candidate, is running as a candidate in the Sarthe. | Clea Caulcutt for POLITICO

“Frankly, I don’t know her,” said shop owner Nicolas Forget. “I don’t know anything any more … I’m undecided really, there have been too many promises that haven’t been honored,” he said.

‘People want radical change’

As the EU election results rolled in, the writing was on the wall.

In Sablé-sur-Sarthe, National Rally’s lead candidate Jordan Bardella took home 32 percent of the vote, compared to 19 percent for Macron’s coalition.

And it looks like the same could now happen in the national election.

Recent nationwide polls suggest the National Rally and its conservative allies could get 35.5 percent of the vote, compared to 29.5 percent for the left-wing alliance and 19.5 percent for Macron’s coalition.

At Le Globe café, Martine and Philippe are enjoying a morning coffee and a catch-up. Both want to vote for the National Rally in the first round of the parliamentary election on Sunday. Martine, a retired child minder, is drawn to the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, but voted for Macron in the last presidential election.

“The people want radical change. It’s all going to the dogs,” said Martine, who did not want to give her surname because of the stigma still attached to the anti-immigrant National Rally. “My main concern is purchasing power … I can no longer buy meat, when I go shopping, I spend €100 and hardly have anything to show for it,” she said.

And Le Pen’s tireless efforts to detoxify her party, long associated with extremism and racism, have worked.

“Marine Le Pen appears calmer than the rest, all the other candidates are at each others’ throats,” Martine said.

Here the main concerns are inflation, insecurity and, more generally, a sense that life is not as good as before. Both Martine and Philippe are aware the National Rally probably won’t be able to deliver on their promises, but that doesn’t deter them.

“But there’s one thing that’s for sure, I won’t vote for Macron,” added Philippe, a retired client assessor, who also declined to give his surname. “He’s too pretentious, too much of a young cock,” he said.

They conservatives simply ‘gave up’

The success of the National Rally is a seismic shift in the region’s political traditions.

The leisure marina in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, a old bastion of former Prime Minister François Fillon. | Clea Caulcutt for POLITICO

“This used to be Gaullist territory, out-and-out [conservative], with strong local barons such as François Fillon … and quite a traditional, right-wing rural electorate,” said Serge Danilo, chief editor for the local daily newspaper, Le Maine Libre.

Fillon’s own fortunes died in a fake job scandal — over which he was fined and sentenced to a suspended jail term — after he was found to have paid his wife generously for a fictitious political assistant role. In a sign the contours were moving, the National Rally almost captured Fillon’s constituency during the last parliamentary elections in 2022, but lost to a left-wing candidate by a handful of votes. 

The dominance of the right also ebbed with the departure of big employers such the white goods manufacturers Moulinex, as well as smaller factories scattered across the countryside.

Over the years, the rise of the far-right kicked off in the areas furthest away from city centers, said Danilo, as public services, such as post offices and tax offices, were shuttered.

As Macron’s party successfully siphoned off center-right voters, “many of the right-wing leaders simply gave up,” he said.

The traditional conservative right has been badly wounded by its own infighting. Les Républicains, the party of presidents such as Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac, has effectively split over whether to team up with the National Rally in Sunday’s election.

Earlier in June, the leader of Les Républicains Éric Ciotti sealed a deal with the National Rally ensuring that his allies don’t run against the far right in agreed constituencies — leading to a spat that has weakened the conservative camp.

Marie-Caroline Le Pen — who declined to give an interview for this story — is running in Sarthe on a joint ticket with a former Les Républicains party member.

“The other Les Républicains candidates will fight gloriously until the end, against Macron and against the National Rally. They will hold the candle until it goes out,” said National Rally MEP Philippe Olivier, Marie-Caroline Le Pen’s husband, who is also campaigning in the region.

Last year, Bardella launched his “Conquest of the West” campaign in Sarthe. Now, in this election, the far right hopes to complete its takeover of the France’s conservative countryside.

The National Rally is also looking even further afield to rack up wins: toward the west, toward Brittany and the Loire region, where historically the far right has been weak.

So when the French president called a snap election, he took almost everyone by surprise, apart from the National Rally, who were already heavily mobilized to test new political boundaries.

“[They] started their campaign for the European election as early as October, hammering home the message: ‘We’re here, we’re ready to govern,’” Danilo said.

“None of the parties were ready, except the National Rally.”