With the pledge “we are ready” to govern, the head of the far-right National Rally party in France has outlined his party’s intentions to address the cost of living problem, immigration, and law and order.
Before Sunday’s first round of legislative elections, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella reminded voters that the National Rally offered the only credible alternative to address France’s path.
On June 30 and July 7, there will be two rounds of voting.
There are 577 seats in the National Assembly, and according to surveys, National Rally might not win the required 289 of them to have a majority.
If the National Rally gains the most seats in the National Assembly, as surveys indicate it could, Bardella plans to become prime minister of France.
His party’s immigration policies include the expulsion of foreign offenders and the elimination of the current policy of droit du sol, or French nationality, for everyone who has resided in France for five years, from the ages of eleven to eighteen.
National Rally (RN) is well ahead in the polls compared to the far-left New Popular Front. After President Emmanuel Macron called the early election in response to RN’s success in the European elections earlier this month, his centrist party, Renew, fell to third place.
Bardella will face Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and the New Popular Front’s Manuel Bompard in a television discussion on Tuesday, pitting the three significant organizations against each other. Already, Mr. Attal has called RN’s economic policies a catastrophe and ridiculed them.
President Macron has said that the National Rally exacerbated divisions in France by reducing its citizens to stereotypes based on race and religion; he conceded that the far left was just as guilty of this sin.
As part of his nationalist platform, Bardella said that, with the exception of dual nationals, only French citizens would be considered for the most sensitive positions in the defense and security sectors.
According to Bardella, a national priority program would reduce welfare spending and cap social spending on French residents. If a referendum were required, Bardella threatened to force it through despite the fact that it would likely violate France’s constitution.
